Multiple factors help shape the infant intestinal microbiota early in life. Environmental conditions such as the presence of bioactive molecules from breast milk dictate gut microbial growth and survival. Infants also receive distinct, personalized, bacterial exposures leading to differential colonization. Microbial exposures and gut environmental conditions differ between infants in different ...

There is increasing evidence that the gut microbiota plays a major role in host health and disease. In this study, we examined whether perturbation of the maternal gut microbiota during pregnancy, induced by administration of non-absorbable antibiotics to pregnant dams, influences the behavior of offspring. Terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism analyses of fecal bacterial compositio...

To cite: Ding NS, Mullish BH, McLaughlin J, et al. Frontline Gastroenterology Published Online First: [please include Day Month Year] doi:10.1136/flgastro-2016100752 INTRODUCTION A group of stakeholders met, under the aegis of the British Society of Gastroenterology, to discuss the current landscape of faecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) within the UK and beyond. The meeting covered a wide ...

Editor’s Note: The gut-brain axis—an imaginary line between the brain and the gut—is one of the new frontiers of neuroscience. Microbiota in our gut, sometimes referred to as the “second genome” or the “second brain,” may influence our mood in ways that scientists are just now beginning to understand. Unlike with inherited genes, it may be possible to reshape, or even to cultivate, this second ...

Using high-resolution flow cytometry of bacterial shape (forward scatter) and DNA content (DAPI staining), we detected dramatic differences in the fecal microbiota composition during murine colitis that were validated using 16S rDNA sequencing. This innovative method provides a fast and inexpensive tool to interrogate the microbiota on the single-cell level.

Cystic fibrosis gastrointestinal disease includes nutrient malabsorption and intestinal inflammation. We show that the abundances of Escherichia coli in fecal microbiota were significantly higher in young children with cystic fibrosis than in controls and correlated with fecal measures of nutrient malabsorption and inflammation, suggesting that E. coli could contribute to cystic fibrosis gastro...

Fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) is a treatment designed to correct gut dysbiosis by administration of feces from a healthy volunteer. It is still unclear whether FMT for children with ulcerative colitis (UC) is effective or hazardous. Here we describe a young patient to have received FMT for UC. A three-year-old girl was admitted to our hospital with severe active UC, and treated with am...

Microbiota studies have uncovered numerous associations between human gut microbes and health-related outcomes. However, since most of these correlations were observed in cross-sectional studies, the causal inference is limited. The contribution microbiota can be evidenced through disease induction or exacerbation animal models after fecal transplantation (FMT) from patients.

1 Duke Human Vaccine Institute, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, North Carolina, United States of America, 2 Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, North Carolina, United States of America, 3 Department of Pediatrics, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, North Carolina, United States of America, 4 Department of Immunology...

BACKGROUND The airways of healthy humans harbor a distinct microbial community. Perturbations in the microbial community have been associated with disease, yet little is known about the formation and development of a healthy airway microbiota in early life. Our goal was to understand the establishment of the airway microbiota within the first 3 months of life. We investigated the hypopharyngeal...