Psychosocial adversity experienced in utero and early life is associated with variation in gut microbiota

Social disadvantage (SD) and psychological stressors (PS) trap some populations in poverty, resulting in health inequities. How these two factors become biologically embedded and the pathways leading to adverse health outcomes is unclear, especially in infants exposed to psychosocial adversity in utero and during early life. Variation in gut microbiome structure and functions offers a possible causative pathway. The whole metagenome shotgun datasets and 16S microbiome datasets here are used to interrogate the gut microbiome of mother-child dyads and compare high-SD/high-PS dyads to pairs with low-SD/Low-PS, and demonstrate that the GM of high-SD and high-PS mothers may already be compromised, resulting in the lowest observed inter-individual similarity in that group.

社会不利地位（Social Disadvantage, SD）与心理应激源（Psychological Stressors, PS）会将部分人群裹挟于贫困处境之中，进而引发健康不平等。目前尚不明确这两类因素如何在生物学层面产生持久印记，以及其导致不良健康结局的具体通路，尤其对于在子宫内及生命早期暴露于社会心理逆境的婴儿而言，这一问题更为突出。肠道微生物组的结构与功能变异或为该问题的潜在因果通路。本研究所用的全宏基因组鸟枪法（whole metagenome shotgun）数据集与16S微生物组（16S microbiome）数据集，旨在解析母-子代二元组的肠道微生物组，将高社会不利地位/高心理应激源组与低社会不利地位/低心理应激源组进行对照，并证实高社会不利地位与高心理应激源母亲的肠道微生物组或已出现受损，该组的个体间相似性为所有观测组别中最低。