First report of gut bacterial dataset of a tribal Bhutia family from West Bengal, India

A review on human gut microbial diversity in 21 tribal populations from India

“…The North-East Indian tribes, including Sikkim, were found to have similar food habits, though they belongs to different geo-political boundaries and shared ethnic affiliation. Sample sizes in the studies were different ranging from 193 [14] to merely 3 [16, 17].…”

“…Dehingia et al (2015) [14] claimed that geographical locations, culture and diet had significant influence on gut bacterial profile of the Indian tribes which were dominated by the genus Prevotella . The Drukpa Bhutia tribe in north of West Bengal followed traditional agriculture based diet along with some foraging and livestock rearing products [17] and the Savar tribe in south of West Bengal led a relatively more foraging lifestyle [16], but both of them retained their ancestral gut microbiome profile since they were not impacted much by external influences such as present-day life style factors and food. These two studies, on Drukpa Bhutia and Savar, also claimed parental contribution to the composition of the child’s gut microbiota.…”

“…Those studies seem to be preliminary reports since none of them mentioned the sample size required for this type of study with sufficient power. In case of the studies on the Savar [16] and Drukpa Bhutia [17], from West Bengal, the sample sizes were very low (n = 3) and constituted a single nuclear family unit (mother, father and a child). These two papers aimed at visualizing the diversity of bacterial phyla and genera in the guts of these families and discussing the passage of the bacterial genera/taxa from parents to child in the same family.…”