Project: From infancy to childhood: the intersection of gastrointestinal microbial communities, diet and health

Acronym	GI-MDH
Duration	31/05/2016 - 31/05/2020
Project Topic	The workplan includes a consortium of experienced researchers in the area of infant and child health and the gastrointestinal (GI) microbial community and will bring together 4 cohorts from 2 distinctly different cultural / geographical areas. The first cohort will include 240 Canadian infants born to low risk pregnant women who have experienced minimal intervention during birth, and have a high rate of breastfeeding, and the second Canadian cohort will include 60 infants born prematurely. Both cohorts will include detailed information collected about the diet in infancy including the introduction of other foods, exposures to other medicinal products in the first years of life, body composition measures in infancy and early childhood and follow-up to 3 years. The other 2 cohorts are German born infants, half of whom were randomly allocated to receive oral bacterial lysates in infancy. All participants have stool samples collected longitudinally through infancy. Microbiologists from McMaster University will collaborate with those at Maastricht University to undertake the analyses and interpretation of findings. We aim to answer the question: What is the influence of the timing and nature of solid food introduction in infancy on colonization, succession and stability of GI microbial communities and consequent health outcomes, particularly fat accretion and allergic response? In earlier work, consortia members (Lau et al) determined that reduced diversity in the early fecal microbiota of infants in the first week of life may be causally linked with atopic eczema appearing during the first 18 months of life. Early results from the Canadian team suggest that altered early microbiome may influence fat accretion as early as six months of life. We anticipate that the results of this work will contribute to understanding how differences in early life events (with a particular focus on dietary intake) influence GI microbial communities, the sustainability of that influence and associations of GI microbial community makeup with health outcomes, particularly relating to obesity and atopic disease. In addition, we will work to refine approaches to understanding the GI microbiome and its role on health outcomes through novel analytic approaches.
Network	JPI HDHL
Call	MICROBIOMICS

Project partner

Number	Name	Role	Country
1	McMaster University	Coordinator	Canada
2	NUTRIM Nutrition and Toxicology Research Institute Maastricht	Partner	Netherlands
3	The Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin	Partner	Germany