Gut Metagenome

Malnutrition is a global health problem affecting more than 300 million children worldwide. It is one of the major health concerns in India since around 50% of children below the age of two suffer from various forms of malnutrition. The gut microbiome, collective genomes of bacteria, fungi, protists and viruses present in the alimentary canal, plays an important role in nutrient pre-processing, assimilation and energy harvest from food. Malnourishment and health can probably be directly linked to dysbiosis and eubiosys states of the gut microbiota composition and function.To investigate the role of the gut microbiome in malnutrition, we studied the gut microbiome of 20 rural Indian children with varying nutritional status. Metagenomics approach was adopted to explore the gut microbiome.