Infant fecal microbiome related to eczema

Eczema is common chronic inflammatory skin disorder with significant impact on child health, and its prevalence is increasing worldwide. It is known that the interaction between gut microbes and the host immune system influences early life development of the immune system. We and others have shown that the composition of the stool microbiota signatures differ between eczema and healthy controls in infancy. The scope of work will include the identification of functional and structural gene composition present in the stools of infants with and without eczema by comparative metagenomics. The proposed study will provide the initial steps towards a comprehensive evaluation of the bacterial gene composition in stool microbiota in relation to development of eczema.