A comprehensive analysis of the faecal microbiome and metabolome of Strongyloides stercoralis infected volunteers from a non-endemic area
File(s)
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Data from recent studies support the hypothesis that infections by human gastrointestinal (GI) helminths impact, directly and/or indirectly, on the composition of the host gut microbial flora. However, to the best of our knowledge, these studies have been conducted in helminth-endemic areas with multi-helminth infections and/or in volunteers with underlying gut disorders. Therefore, in this study, we explore the impact of natural mono-infections by the human parasite Strongyloides stercoralis on the faecal microbiota and metabolic profiles of a cohort of human volunteers from a non-endemic area of northern Italy (S+), pre- and post-anthelmintic treatment, and compare the findings with data obtained from a cohort of uninfected controls from the same geographical area (S-). Analyses of bacterial 16S rRNA high-throughput sequencing data revealed increased microbial alpha diversity and decreased beta diversity in the faecal microbial profiles of S+ subjects compared to S-. Furthermore, significant differences in the abundance of several bacterial taxa were observed between samples from S+ and S- subjects, and between S+ samples collected pre- and post-anthelmintic treatment. Faecal metabolite analysis detected marked increases in the abundance of selected amino acids in S+ subjects, and of short chain fatty acids in S- subjects. Overall, our work adds valuable knowledge to current understanding of parasite-microbiota associations and will assist future mechanistic studies aimed to unravel the causality of these relationships.
Date Issued
2018-10-23
Date Acceptance
2018-10-05
Citation
Scientific Reports, 2018, 8 (1)
ISSN
2045-2322
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
Journal / Book Title
Scientific Reports
Volume
8
Issue
1
Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2018. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Cre-ative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not per-mitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
License URL
Sponsor
Medical Research Council
Medical Research Council (MRC)
Identifier
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30353019
PII: 10.1038/s41598-018-33937-3
Grant Number
MR/P011705/1
MR/P011705/2
Subjects
Amino Acids
Animals
Anthelmintics
Bacteria
Biodiversity
Fatty Acids
Feces
Healthy Volunteers
Humans
Metabolome
Microbiota
Phylogeny
Strongyloides stercoralis
Strongyloidiasis
Publication Status
Published
Coverage Spatial
England
Article Number
ARTN 15651