Helminth colonization is associated with increased diversity of the gut microbiota.
Soil-transmitted helminths colonize more than 1.5 billion people worldwide, yet little is known about how they interact with bacterial communities in the gut microbiota. Differences in the gut microbiota between individuals living in developed and developing countries may be partly due to the presence of helminths, since they predominantly infect individuals from developing countries, such as the indigenous communities in Malaysia we examine in this work. We compared the composition and diversity of bacterial communities from the fecal microbiota of 51 people from two villages in Malaysia, of which 36 (70.6%) were infected by helminths. The 16S rRNA V4 region was sequenced at an average of nineteen thousand sequences per samples. Helminth-colonized individuals had greater species richness and number of observed OTUs with enrichment of Paraprevotellaceae, especially with Trichuris infection. We developed a new approach of combining centered log-ratio (clr) transformation for OTU relative abundances with sparse Partial Least Squares Discriminant Analysis (sPLS-DA) to enable more robust predictions of OTU interrelationships. These results suggest that helminths may have an impact on the diversity, bacterial community structure and function of the gut microbiota.
Department of Parasitology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Soo Ching
SC
Lee
Jeffrey Cheah School of Medicine and Health Sciences, Monash University Malaysia, Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia.
Mei San
MS
Tang
Department of Parasitology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Yvonne A L
YA
Lim
Department of Parasitology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Seow Huey
SH
Choy
Department of Medicine, New York University School of Medicine, New York, New York, United States of America; Department of Microbiology, New York University School of Medicine, New York, New York, United States of America.
Zachary D
ZD
Kurtz
Department of Medicine, New York University School of Medicine, New York, New York, United States of America; Department of Microbiology, New York University School of Medicine, New York, New York, United States of America.
Laura M
LM
Cox
Department of Microbiology, New York University School of Medicine, New York, New York, United States of America.
Uma Mahesh
UM
Gundra
Department of Medicine, New York University School of Medicine, New York, New York, United States of America.
Ilseung
I
Cho
Department of Biology, Center for Genomics and Systems Biology, New York University, New York, New York, United States of America.
Richard
R
Bonneau
Department of Medicine, New York University School of Medicine, New York, New York, United States of America; Department of Microbiology, New York University School of Medicine, New York, New York, United States of America.
Martin J
MJ
Blaser
Department of Biomedical Science, Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Kek Heng
KH
Chua
Department of Microbiology, New York University School of Medicine, New York, New York, United States of America.
P'ng
P
Loke
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000818:Animals; D001419:Bacteria / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005243:Feces / Q000382:microbiology / Q000469:parasitology; D005260:Female; D006373:Helminthiasis / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000382:microbiology* / Q000469:parasitology*; D006376:Helminths / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008296:Malaysia / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D054892:Metagenome / Q000235:genetics; D064307:Microbiota / Q000502:physiology*; D009519:New York City / Q000453:epidemiology; D055815:Young Adult