Precocious infant fecal microbiome promotes enterocyte barrier dysfuction, altered neuroendocrine signaling and associates with increased childhood obesity risk.

ABSTRACT: Early life gut microbiome composition has been correlated with childhood obesity, though microbial functional contributions to disease origins remain unclear. Here, using an infant birth cohort (n = 349) we identify a distinct fecal microbiota composition in 1-month-old infants with the lowest rate of exclusive breastfeeding, that relates with higher relative risk for obesity and overweight phenotypes at two years. Higher-risk infant fecal microbiomes exhibited accelerated taxonomic and functional maturation and broad-ranging metabolic reprogramming, including reduced concentrations of neuro-endocrine signals. In vitro, exposure of enterocytes to fecal extracts from higher-risk infants led to upregulation of genes associated with obesity and with expansion of nutrient sensing

SUBMITTER: Yong GJM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10761186 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Jan-Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature