1School of Biological Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia.
2School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia.
Am J Trop Med Hyg. 2021 Apr 19;104(6):2275-2285. doi: 10.4269/ajtmh.20-0831.
Previous studies have reported lower fecal bacterial diversity in urban populations compared with those living in rural settings. However, most of these studies compare geographically distant populations from different countries and even continents. The extent of differences in the gut microbiome in adjacent rural versus urban populations, and the role of such differences, if any, during enteric infections remain poorly understood. To provide new insights into these issues, we sampled the gut microbiome of young children with and without acute diarrheal disease (ADD) living in rural and urban areas in northern Ecuador. Shotgun metagenomic analyses of non-ADD samples revealed small but significant differences in the abundance of microbial taxa, including a greater abundance of Prevotella and a lower abundance of Bacteroides and Alistipes in rural populations. Greater and more significant shifts in taxon abundance, metabolic pathway abundance, and diversity were observed between ADD and non-ADD status when comparing urban to rural sites (Welch's t-test, P < 0.05). Collectively our data show substantial functional, diversity, and taxonomic shifts in the gut microbiome of urban populations with ADD, supporting the idea that the microbiome of rural populations may be more resilient to ADD episodes.
先前的研究报告称，与生活在农村地区的人相比，城市人口的粪便细菌多样性较低。然而，这些研究大多比较的是来自不同国家甚至不同大陆的地理位置遥远的人群。毗邻的农村和城市人口的肠道微生物组存在差异的程度，以及在肠道感染期间是否存在这种差异，如果存在的话，其作用仍知之甚少。为了深入了解这些问题，我们对厄瓜多尔北部农村和城市地区患有和不患有急性腹泻病（ADD）的幼儿的肠道微生物组进行了采样。对非 ADD 样本的鸟枪法宏基因组分析显示，微生物类群的丰度存在微小但显著的差异，包括农村人口中普雷沃氏菌的丰度更高，而拟杆菌和阿里斯泰普斯菌的丰度更低。当比较城市和农村地区时，ADD 和非 ADD 状态之间观察到分类群丰度、代谢途径丰度和多样性的更大和更显著的变化（Welch 检验，P < 0.05）。我们的数据共同表明，患有 ADD 的城市人口的肠道微生物组在功能、多样性和分类上都发生了重大变化，这支持了农村人口的微生物组可能对 ADD 发作更具弹性的观点。
