Gut microbiome of pre-adolescent children of two ethnicities residing in three distant cities

Recent studies have realized the link between gut microbiota and human health and diseases. The question of diet, environment or gene is the determining factor for dominant microbiota and microbiota profile has not been fully resolved, for these comparative studies have been performed on populations of different ethnicities and in short-term intervention studies. Here, the Southern Chinese populations are compared, specifically the children of Guangzhou City (China), Penang City (west coast Malaysia) and Kelantan City (east coast Malaysia). These Chinese people have similar ancestry thus it would allow us to delineate the effect of diet and ethnicity on gut microbiota composition. For comparison, the Penang and Kelantan Malay children were also included. The results revealed that differences in microbiota genera within an ethnicity in different cities was due to differences in food type. Sharing the similar diet but different ethnicity in a city or different cities and living environment showed similar gut microbiota. The major gut microbiota (more than 1% total Operational Taxonomy Units, OTUs) of the children population are largely determined by diet but not ethnicity, environment, and lifestyle. Elucidating the link between diet and microbiota would facilitate the development of strategies to improve human health at a younger age.