Metagenomic analysis discloses the impact of intrapartum antimicrobial prophylaxis in the early microbiome

Abstract

Trabajo presentado en el 8th International Congress of the Union of European Neonatal and Perinatal Societies (UENPS), celebrado en Bucarest (Rumanía), del 3 al 5 de octubre de 2018The correct establishment of the intestinal microbiome at the beginning of life plays a key role in infant and later health. This process is affected by several factors, some of them (delivery and feeding type or gestational age) are well-known. However, other factors such as the intrapartum antimicrobial prophylaxis (IAP), in spite of being present in over 30% of total deliveries, have been much less studied. Given the increasingly evident relationship between early microbiota and later disease risk and the rising worries regarding antimicrobial resistances, there is an urgent need to assess the potential adverse consequences of IAP on the establishment of intestinal microbiota. The main objective of this study was to assess the effect of the IAP on intestinal microbiome composition in full-term 30-day-old infants by metagenomics approach. [Methods] Nine one-month-old babies, five of whom were born from mothers receiving IAP, were recruited for this study. With the objective of avoiding possible cofounders, the enrolled cohort of babies were in all cases full-term and vaginally delivered. Their gut microbial DNA was extracted from faecal samples. Illumina shotgun sequencing of total gut DNA was performed, and reconstruction of the microbiomes allowed taxonomic and functional characterization. [Results] Babies whose mother had received IAP showed slight microbiota differences when compared with non IAP-exposed babies. Beneficial microbial groups, such as bifidobacteria and bacteroides, were the most affected. The functional classification of coding reads by means of different databases allowed us to identify differences in the abundance of transporters and enzymes involved in antibiotic resistance in infants exposed to IAP compared with their non-exposed counterparts. [Conclusions] Metagenomics analysis on healthy babies confirms an impact of IAP treatment on the correct establishment of their intestinal microbiota. These observations highlight the need to develop new dietary strategies based on microbial modulation with the objective of minimizing the effect of IAP in the early stage of lifePeer reviewe