Peer-reviewed article
Exploratory integrative analysis of infant gut microbiome and metabolome suggests diet- and microbiome-derived metabolites associated with childhood asthma.
Turi KN, Wu X, Li Y, Rosas-Salazar C, Gebretsadik T et al. ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This study analysed gut bacteria and metabolites from infants to understand how early-life digestive health might be connected to childhood asthma. Researchers found that certain metabolites, particularly lipid-related substances linked to diet and bacteria, were associated with asthma at age 6. The findings suggest that what infants eat and how their gut bacteria process these foods may influence asthma risk later in childhood.
Key points
- Stool microbiome showed significant correlations with lipid-related metabolites and specific bacterial taxa including Staphylococcus, Enterobacteriaceae, Veillonella, and Bacteroides species
- Many associated metabolites appear to be diet-derived, with gut bacteria playing a co-metabolising role
- Correlations between stool microbiome and urine metabolites were weak
- The study used data from infants with microbiome measurements (n=402), urine metabolomics (n=199), and stool metabolomics (n=58)
- Asthma was assessed at age 6 using validated questionnaires
Limitations
This is an exploratory analysis with small overlapping sample sizes (58-89 infants with both microbiome and metabolite data), making findings preliminary and requiring validation in larger studies. The study cannot establish causation or explain the mechanistic pathways by which these metabolites influence asthma development.
Abstract
Background Early-life gut microbiome composition has been linked to childhood asthma risk, but the metabolic pathways underlying this association remain unclear. Objective To integrate infant gut microbiome and metabolome data to identify pathways associated with asthma risk. Methods Participants were from the INSPIRE birth cohort with early infancy 16S rRNA microbiome data (n=402), urinary metabolomics (n=199), and stool metabolomics (n=58). Overlapping datasets included 89 (urine) and 58 (stool) infants. Current asthma at age 6 was assessed by validated questionnaires. Nested sparse partial least squares discriminant analysis prioritized metabolites and amplicon sequence variants (ASVs) feature selection, followed by Spearman rank correlations to evaluate metabolite-microbiome associations with Bonferroni correction. Results Several significant correlations were identified in associations between the stool microbiome and metabolites, primarily involving lipid-related metabolites and microbiome taxa such as Staphylococcus sp. (unclassified), Enterobacteriaceae sp. (unclassified), Veillonella sp. (unclassified), Thomasclavelia ramosa, Bacteroides sp.(unclassified), and Clostridium innocuum group. The correlations between stool microbiome and urine metabolites were weak. Many associated metabolites are likely diet-derived, with microbiome co-metabolising. Conclusion Exploratory microbiome-metabolite correlations suggest diet-related metabolites may link the infant gut environment to later asthma risk.