Skip to main content
bioRxiv
  • Home
  • About
  • Submit
  • ALERTS / RSS
Advanced Search
New Results

Early life gut microbiome dynamics mediate maternal effects on infant growth in vervet monkeys

View ORCID ProfileLauren Petrullo, Alice Baniel, Matthew J. Jorgensen, Sierra Sams, View ORCID ProfileNoah Snyder-Mackler, Amy Lu
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.05.11.443657
Lauren Petrullo
1Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, USA
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • ORCID record for Lauren Petrullo
  • For correspondence: petrullo@umich.edu amy.lu@stonybrook.edu
Alice Baniel
2Center for Evolution and Medicine, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, 85281, USA
3School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, 85287, USA
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Matthew J. Jorgensen
4Department of Pathology, Section on Comparative Medicine, Wake Forest School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, NC, 27157, USA
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Sierra Sams
5Paragon Genomics, Hayward, CA, 94545, USA
6Department of Psychology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, 98195, USA
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Noah Snyder-Mackler
2Center for Evolution and Medicine, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, 85281, USA
3School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, 85287, USA
6Department of Psychology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, 98195, USA
7Department of Biology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, 98195, USA
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • ORCID record for Noah Snyder-Mackler
Amy Lu
8Department of Anthropology, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, 11794, USA
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • For correspondence: petrullo@umich.edu amy.lu@stonybrook.edu
  • Abstract
  • Full Text
  • Info/History
  • Metrics
  • Supplementary material
  • Data/Code
  • Preview PDF
Loading

ABSTRACT

Background Maternal parity is associated with variation in infant growth across mammals, but the mechanisms underlying this relationship are unclear. Given emerging links between growth and the microbiome, and the importance of maternal microbiota in establishing this community, the assembly of the infant gut microbiome may be a mediator of parity effects on infant growth.

Results Here, we analyzed 118 fecal and milk samples from mother-infant vervet monkey dyads across the first 6 months postpartum in a population with high growth-associated infant mortality. Despite poorer milk production, infants born to low parity females were larger at 6 months of age than their counterparts and exhibited divergent patterns in gut microbiome assembly. Gut microbiome alpha diversity increased rapidly from the first days of life to 4 months old in all infants, but infants born to low parity females exhibited reduced gut microbiome alpha diversity during early life. At the taxonomic level, infants broadly exhibited a shift from Bacteroides fragilis to Prevotella dominance. Infants of low parity females housed more B. fragilis in their guts, and B. fragilis dominance drove reduced alpha diversity. Maternal vertical transmission to the infant gut was greater from milk than from the maternal gut, and was greatest among infants born to low parity females. B. fragilis was 15-fold more abundant in milk than in the maternal gut and was greater in the milk of low parity females, suggesting that milk may be the primary maternal reservoir of B. fragilis. Path analyses demonstrated that both infant gut alpha diversity and B. fragilis mediated parity effects on postnatal growth: infants were larger at 6 months old if they exhibited reduced alpha diversity and a greater relative abundance of B. fragilis during early life.

Conclusion The first days of life are a critical period of infant gut microbiome organization during which the establishment of a less diverse, milk-oriented microbial community abundant in B. fragilis promotes growth among infants born to reproductively inexperienced females.

Competing Interest Statement

The authors have declared no competing interest.

Footnotes

  • https://figshare.com/s/79f3cf6cf410f5a87d31

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-ND 4.0 International license.
Back to top
PreviousNext
Posted May 13, 2021.
Download PDF

Supplementary Material

Data/Code
Email

Thank you for your interest in spreading the word about bioRxiv.

NOTE: Your email address is requested solely to identify you as the sender of this article.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
Early life gut microbiome dynamics mediate maternal effects on infant growth in vervet monkeys
(Your Name) has forwarded a page to you from bioRxiv
(Your Name) thought you would like to see this page from the bioRxiv website.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Share
Early life gut microbiome dynamics mediate maternal effects on infant growth in vervet monkeys
Lauren Petrullo, Alice Baniel, Matthew J. Jorgensen, Sierra Sams, Noah Snyder-Mackler, Amy Lu
bioRxiv 2021.05.11.443657; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.05.11.443657
Reddit logo Twitter logo Facebook logo LinkedIn logo Mendeley logo
Citation Tools
Early life gut microbiome dynamics mediate maternal effects on infant growth in vervet monkeys
Lauren Petrullo, Alice Baniel, Matthew J. Jorgensen, Sierra Sams, Noah Snyder-Mackler, Amy Lu
bioRxiv 2021.05.11.443657; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.05.11.443657

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Google Plus One

Subject Area

  • Physiology
Subject Areas
All Articles
  • Animal Behavior and Cognition (4864)
  • Biochemistry (10821)
  • Bioengineering (8061)
  • Bioinformatics (27370)
  • Biophysics (14014)
  • Cancer Biology (11157)
  • Cell Biology (16094)
  • Clinical Trials (138)
  • Developmental Biology (8806)
  • Ecology (13323)
  • Epidemiology (2067)
  • Evolutionary Biology (17390)
  • Genetics (11704)
  • Genomics (15957)
  • Immunology (11057)
  • Microbiology (26148)
  • Molecular Biology (10674)
  • Neuroscience (56714)
  • Paleontology (422)
  • Pathology (1737)
  • Pharmacology and Toxicology (3012)
  • Physiology (4566)
  • Plant Biology (9662)
  • Scientific Communication and Education (1617)
  • Synthetic Biology (2697)
  • Systems Biology (6993)
  • Zoology (1513)