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Published on: January 27, 2019
Gut microbiome development in early childhood is affected by day care attendance
Amnon Amir1, Ortal Erez-Granat1, Tzipi Braun1
1Sheba Medical Center, Tel-HaShomer, affiliated with the Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel.
Insights
Day care attendance significantly impacts children's gut microbiome development. Children in daycare become more similar to their peers, showing an accelerated maturation of their gut microbial composition.
Area of Science:
- Microbiology
- Developmental Biology
- Pediatrics
Background:
- The human gut microbiome undergoes significant development in early life, stabilizing in adulthood.
- Day care attendance represents a major environmental shift during early childhood, potentially influencing microbial development.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the impact of day care attendance on the gut microbiome composition and development in young children.
- To compare the gut microbial profiles of children attending day care versus those cared for at home.
Main Methods:
- Longitudinal study tracking 61 children in day care and 24 home-care controls over one school year.
- Analysis of 268 fecal samples from children with a median entry age of 12 months.
- Characterization of gut microbial composition and its variation within and between groups.
Main Results:
- Day care attendance was a significant factor shaping children's gut microbiome.
- Specific day care facilities and classes influenced microbial composition, leading to increased similarity among children within the same group.
- Day care children exhibited distinct microbial profiles compared to home-care children, with an enrichment of taxa typically seen in older individuals.
Conclusions:
- Day care attendance acts as an external factor promoting gut microbiome maturation in early childhood.
- The social environment of day care influences the trajectory of gut microbial development.
- Early life microbial exposures in group settings may accelerate developmental processes.
Abstract:
The human gut microbiome develops during the first years of life, followed by a relatively stable adult microbiome. Day care attendance is a drastic change that exposes children to a large group of peers in a diverse environment for prolonged periods, at this critical time of microbial development, and therefore has the potential to affect microbial composition. We characterize the effect of day care on the gut microbial development throughout a single school year in 61 children from 4 different day care facilities, and in additional 24 age-matched home care children (n = 268 samples, median age of entering the study was 12 months). We show that day care attendance is a significant and impactful factor in shaping the microbial composition of the growing child, the specific daycare facility and class influence the gut microbiome, and each child becomes more similar to others in their day care. Furthermore, in comparison to home care children, day care children have a different gut microbial composition, with enrichment of taxa more frequently observed in older populations. Our results provide evidence that daycare may be an external factor that contributes to gut microbiome maturation and make-up in early childhood.
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