Colonic Microbiota Signatures across Five Northern European Countries

Abstract

The composition of the colonic microbiota of 91 northern Europeans was characterized by fluorescent in situ hybridization using 18 phylogenetic probes. On average 75% of the bacteria were identified, and large interindividual variations were observed. Clostridium coccoides and Clostridium leptum were the dominant groups (28.0% and 25.2%), followed by the Bacteroides (8.5%). According to principal component analysis, no significant grouping with respect to geographic origin, age, or gender was observed.For the past 10 years, the progress made in molecular technologies has given rise to new ways to explore the human colonic microbiota. Investigations based on 16S rRNA sequences have revealed the presence of hundreds of molecular species, the majority uncultivated and/or not yet cultivated, unique to their host and with few species shared between two individuals (5, 10, 13). Fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) (1) of the 16S rRNA has shown that the species diversity comprised less than 20 dominant phylogenetic groups (2-4, 7). However, the molecular analysis has so far been restricted to limited cohorts of individuals, recruited within a single geographic region or country (3,4,7,8,14). In this study, we characterized the fecal microbiota of 91 individuals from five northern European countries to provide a large-scale molecular analysis of the normal colonic microbiota in healthy humans. Multivariate data analysis was performed in order to seek a possible link between the composition of the fecal microbiota and age, gender, or geographic origin parameters.

Human oral viruses are personal, persistent and gender-consistent

“…These data were significant for the virome contents in both males (P ¼ 0.0121) and females (P ¼ 0.0034) ( Table 2 and Supplementary Table 2). Differences between the sexes in bacterial communities previously have been demonstrated for the human gut microbiome (Mueller et al, 2006;Li et al, 2008) and the subgingival crevice (Schenkein et al, 1993;Lay et al, 2005). The data presented here (Table 2) suggest that sex-based differences observed in bacteria also apply to communities of human viruses.…”

The Relationship between Habitual Dietary Intake and Gut Microbiota in Young Japanese Women

“…Prevotella has been found to be a minor component of Japanese gut microbiota (42), and is considered to be difficult to detect by the T-RFLP method. While some studies suggest that the gender of the host has an effect on the gut microbiota (43), other studies suggest that gender has no effect (44). For example, previous studies have reported that the BacteroidesPrevotella groups are more abundant in the gut microbiota of males than females from European locations (45).…”

Characterization of the complex bacterial communities colonizing biliary stents reveals a host-dependent diversity

“…For example, microbial communities of monozygotic twins have a higher similarity to each other than their marital partners, indicating a strong influence of the host genotype (Zoetendal et al, 2001). Similarly, a large individual variability, which could not be explained by geographic origin, age or gender, has been reported (Lay et al, 2005). In addition, microbial community composition in the intestine depends to a large extent on the supply of dietary carbohydrates that resist digestion in the upper tract, and it is conceivable that diets have an impact on bacterial community composition (Gibson et al, 1995;Kleessen et al, 2001;Duncan et al, 2003).…”