Intestinal fungal profile in healthy Saudi children.

BACKGROUND AND STUDY AIM

Fungi have a well-established role in medicine. Herein, we describe the fungal profile and abundance in the gut of healthy Saudi children.

PATIENTS AND METHODS

Fecal samples from a random sample of 20 school-age Saudi children were collected, stored at -80 °C, and dispatched to the laboratory in the USA where fungal DNAs were isolated and shotgun metagenomic sequencing was performed. Abundance was presented as average percentage of fungal taxa.

RESULTS

The median age of the participants was 12.5 years (range: 7-16 years), and 35 % were male. Ascomycota were the most abundant phyla and Eurotiomycetes, Saccharomycetes, were the most abundant class. The average abundance of fungal genera were Histoplasma (36 %) and Saccharomyces (31 %). The most abundant species were Histoplasma capsulatum (36 %) and Saccharomyces pastorianus (23 %). Other less abundant but may be functionally important genera and species included Candida (2.6 %) and Saccharomycescerevisiae (8 %).

CONCLUSION

The profile and abundance of the gut fungi in healthy Saudi children reveals important differences compared to Western literature. Accordingly, this report represents a more appropriate reference than Western data to use as controls for regional studies aiming to identify fungi associated with disease.