Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: Children of undernourished women have impaired pre-and postnatal growth. Undernourished women and children have a high incidence of environmental enteric dysfunction (EED), an enteropathy characterized by gut barrier dysfunction and systemic inflammation. Here, we employ gnotobiotic mice to compare the effects of bacterial consortia cultured from the duodenal microbiota of Bangladeshi women with EED and their healthy counterparts. Female mice harboring the EED-derived consortium exhibited fetal and placental growth restriction. Transcriptomic and proteomic analyses disclosed pronounced effects of the EED-derived consortium on the decidual component of the maternal-fetal interface involving tissue-resident uterine natural killer (uNK) cells and disruption of TGF-β signaling between uNK and decidual stromal cells. Co-housing mice with EED and healthy consortia ameliorated these effects, disclosing bacterial targets to improve prenatal development.
Language: English
Topic: Gut microbiota and health
Subfield: Molecular Biology
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
Awards: Washington University - to test the hypothesis that the Small intestine microbiota contributes to Small Intestine enteropathy and malnutrition (low-BMI) in young Banglades..., The small intestinal microbiota in undernourished women and undernourished children in Bangladesh: identifying causal mechanisms and therapeutic targets, G4959398614, G6088403920
OpenAlex ID: W7203698431