Shotgun metagenomics of fecal bacterial consortium inhabiting healthy Asian children

Recent development in intestinal microbiology has revealed crucial functions of gut microbiota as interface between diet and health and the question has arisen how diet modulates gut microbial community. In this context, Asia is an interesting association of cohorts with their own food habit unique to each country or region. To investigate the correlation among diet, health, and gut microbiota, Asian Microbiome Project (AMP) has been established with ten countries and Phase I study was already performed by focusing on children gut microbiota, which were expected to more depend on regional food compared to adult. Their microbiota has been analyzed based on 16S rRNA gene sequencing. As a result, we have found two distinctive enterotypes, Bifidobacterium/Bacteroides (BB) enterotype and Prevotella (P) enterotype in these Asian population, as well as local differences unique to each country or region. BB-enterotype was enriched in temperate countries, such as Japan and China, while P-enterotype was frequent in tropical countries. In conjunction with dietary survey, it is suspected that these difference may be a reflection of their dietary habit. To correlate the function of their gut microbial community with diet input, we performed shotgun metagenomic sequencing of those microbial community and gained overview on consortium of functional genes, e.g., network of anabolic and catabolic pathway enriched in each food-oriented enterotype or biosynthesis of beneficial or non-benefical compounds, such as vitamins or secondary bile acids.