Bacterial and Fungal Gut Community Dynamics Over the First 5 Years of Life in Predominantly Rural Communities in Ghana.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Bacterial and fungal microbiotas are increasingly recognized as important in health and disease starting early in life. However, microbiota composition has not yet been investigated in most rural, low-resource settings, and in such settings, bacterial and fungal microbiotas have not been compared. Thus, we applied 16S and ITS2 amplicon sequencing, respectively, to investigate bacterial and fungal fecal microbiotas in rural Ghanaian children cross-sectionally from birth to 5 years of age. Corresponding maternal fecal and breast milk microbiotas were additionally investigated.

Results

While bacterial communities differed systematically across the age spectrum in composition and diversity, the same was not observed for the fungal microbiota. We also identified a nove

SUBMITTER: Amenyogbe N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8290483 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature