The abundance of Ruminococcus bromii is associated with faecal butyrate levels and atopic dermatitis in infancy

Abstract

Background: Impaired microbial development and decreased levels of short-chain fatty acids, particularly butyrate, is suggested to have a role in the development of atopic dermatitis (AD).Methods: Faecal microbiota composition, abundance of selected bacterial groups and fermentation metabolites were compared at 90, 180 and 360 days of life between 27 children who developed AD by age one (AD group), and 39 controls (non-AD group) among the CARE (Childhood AlleRgy, nutrition and Environment) study cohort.Results: Diversity within the Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes phyla in the faecal microbiota was lower in the AD group compared with the non-AD group. Longitudinal analysis showed multiple amplicon sequence variants (ASV) within the same bacterial family to be differentially abundant. Namely, Ruminococcus bromii, a keystone primary starch degrader, and Akkermansia muciniphila, a mucin-utilizer, had lower abundance among the AD group. Children with AD were less likely to have high levels of faecal butyrate at 360 days compared with those without AD (11.5% vs 34.2%). At 360 days, children with high abundance of R. bromii had higher level of butyrate as well as lower proportion of children with AD compared to children with low abundance of R. bromii (11.1-12.5% vs 44.4-52.5%), which was independent of the abundance of the major butyrate producers. Conclusion:Our results suggested that R. bromii and other primary degraders might play an important role in the differences in microbial cross-feeding and metabolite formation between children with and without AD, which may influence the risk of developing the disease.

Gut microbial indicators of metabolic health underlie age-related differences in obesity and diabetes risk among Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders

“…Relationships between gut bacterial taxa and age, T2DM risk, and BMI are summarized in Table 2 . Taxa described as butyrate-producers in previous literature are denoted by an asterisk ( Louis and Flint, 2009 ; Vital et al., 2014 ; van den Berg et al., 2021 ; Das et al., 2022 ; Jaagura et al., 2022 ; Lee et al, 2022 ; Sasaki et al., 2022 ). As an exploratory measure, we chose to consider gut bacterial relationships with biometric data at statistical significance of P<0.10 .…”

Abundance of Ruminococcaceae is Associated with Claudin 22 Gene Expression and Body Weight in Mice

“…The family Ruminococcaceae and the genus Ruminococcus are involved in alcohol metabolism [39] , adipokine metabolism [40] , cirrhosis [41] , acute-on-chronic liver failure [42] , allergy [43,44] , antibiotic biosynthesis [45] , in ammation [46] , and cardiovascular risk [47] . However, the involvement of these bacteria in BW changes is controversial, with reports stating that individuals with obesity have increased [48][49][50] or decreased [51][52][53] abundance of Ruminococcaceae or that it varies with species [54] .…”

The development of human gut microbiota fermentation capacity during the first year of life

“…These differences in CAZY profiles might be indicative of a disrupted carbohydrate degradation and cross‐feeding scheme which might impact the development of fermentation capacity. In another study, the abundance of the starch‐degrader Ruminococcus bromii and of the mucing‐utilizing A. muciniphila was lower at 1 year (Sasaki et al, 2022 ) in infants AD compared with infants without AD, which again links health status to alterations in carbohydrate degradation capacity.…”

“…in the infant gut might explain the lower overall microbial richness of breastfed infant gut microbiota compared with that of formula‐fed infants observed in some studies (Ferretti et al, 2018 ; Stewart et al, 2018 ). HMOs are likely supplied in surplus as spent HMOs and fucose were recovered in faeces with concentrations decreasing during the first months of breastfeeding (Borewicz et al, 2020 ; Sasaki et al, 2022 ). The faecal presence of HMOs and fucose suggests that the carbohydrate‐dependent energy needs of the Bifidobacterium ‐dominated intestinal microbiota are fulfilled.…”

“…Similar to Bacteroides , A. muciniphila and B. bifidum employ the same enzymes for mucus and for HMOs degradation (Kostopoulos et al, 2020 ; Marcobal et al, 2011 ; Turroni et al, 2010 ). Occurrence and abundance of A. muciniphila was nevertheless reported as low at 3 and 6 months (Sasaki et al, 2022 ).…”