Paternal and induced gut microbiota seeding complement mother-to-infant transmission

Léonard Dubois, Mireia Valles-Colomer, Alise Ponsero, Otto Helve, Sture Andersson, Kaija-Leena Kolho, Francesco Asnicar, Katri Korpela, Anne Salonen, Nicola Segata, Willem M. de Vos

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

Abstract

Microbial colonization of the neonatal gut involves maternal seeding, which is partially disrupted in cesarean-born infants and after intrapartum antibiotic prophylaxis. However, other physically close individuals could complement such seeding. To assess the role of both parents and of induced seeding, we analyzed two longitudinal metagenomic datasets (health and early life microbiota [HELMi]: N = 74 infants, 398 samples, and SECFLOR: N = 7 infants, 35 samples) with cesarean-born infants who received maternal fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT). We found that the father constitutes a stable source of strains for the infant independently of the delivery mode, with the cumulative contribution becoming comparable to that of the mother after 1 year. Maternal FMT increased mother-infant strain sharing in cesarean-born infants, raising the average bacterial empirical growth rate while reducing pathogen colonization. Overall, our results indicate that maternal seeding is partly complemented by that of the father and support the potential of induced seeding to restore potential deviations in this process.

Original languageEnglish
JournalCell Host and Microbe
Volume32
Issue number6
Pages (from-to)1011-1024.e4
Number of pages18
ISSN1931-3128
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 12 Jun 2024
MoE publication typeA1 Journal article-refereed

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 The Authors

Fields of Science

  • early life
  • father-infant
  • fecal microbiota transplantation
  • maternal FMT
  • maternal transmission
  • microbiome seeding
  • microbiota
  • paternal transmission
  • strain sharing
  • 11832 Microbiology and virology

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