Year: 2016
Type: review
Abstract: The gut microbiota plays important roles in nutrient absorption, immune system development, and pathogen colonization resistance. Perturbations early in life may be detrimental to host health in the short and the long-term. Antibiotics are among the many factors that influence the development of the microbiota. Because antibiotics are heavily administered during the first critical years of gut microbiota development, it is important to understand the effects of these interventions. Infants, particularly those born prematurely, represent an interesting population because they receive early and often extensive antibiotic therapy in the first months after birth. Gibson et al. recently demonstrated that antibiotic therapy in preterm infants can dramatically affect the gut microbiome. While meropenem, ticarcillin-clavulanate, and cefotaxime treatments were associated with decreased species richness, gentamicin and vancomycin had variable effects on species richness. Interestingly, the direction of species richness response could be predicted based on the abundance of 2 species and 2 genes in the microbiome prior to gentamicin or vancomycin treatment. Nonetheless, all antibiotic treatments enriched the presence of resistance genes and multidrug resistant organisms. Treatment with different antibiotics further resulted in unique population shifts of abundant organisms and selection for different sets of resistance genes. In this addendum, we provide an extended discussion of these recent findings, and outline important future directions for elucidating the interplay between antibiotics and preterm infant gut microbiota development.
Source: Gut Microbes
Institution: Washington University in St. Louis
Language: English
Topic: Gut microbiota and health
Subfield: Molecular Biology
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $3,060
Funders: March of Dimes Foundation, Children's Discovery Institute, National Institute of General Medical Sciences, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
Awards: G1127479951, The Neonatal Microbiome and Necrotizing Enterocolitis, Training in Reproductive Sciences, G2518732286, G3082549129, G4431179111, Training Program in Cellular and Molecular Biology, ESTABLISHMENT AND DYNAMICS OF ANTIBIOTIC RESISTANCE RESERVOIRS IN DEVELOPING INTE, Host-environment interactions in the pathophysiology of digestive disease
OpenAlex ID: W2485793996