Early-life immunological and microbial differences between East African and North European children

The urbanization of African populations adopting Westernized lifestyles might be connected to changes in microbial exposure and immune system activity that are harmful to health and increase the risk of non-communicable diseases, such as immune-mediated diseases. The study aims to compare microbial exposure, immune system markers, and gut microbiota between rural African and Westernized Northern European children to delineate whether there are differences present in these factors in early childhood.

We compared innate immune cytokines in plasma (IL-10, IL-6, IL-1β, and TNF-α) using Luminex, gut microbiota using 16S rRNA sequencing, and microbial infections using qPCR in early childhood longitudinal sample series of children from rural Africa (participants from the iLINS-DYAD-M study conducted in Malawi) and from Northern Europe (participants from the DIPP study conducted in Finland) to identify differences which could be associated with negative health outcomes in Westernized societies.

Here, we show that the levels of plasma cytokines and frequency of stool pathogen positivity are substantially higher in Malawian than in Finnish children and that some of the cytokines differ in their longitudinal pattern between the two groups. Also, the diversity and composition of gut microbiota differ between the groups at the age of 6 months and diverge more with increasing age.

These results highlight the early emergence of differences in the immune system and gut microbiota between children living in extremities of the microbial exposure gradient. These differences add to the existing knowledge of possible factors contributing to increasing prevalence of chronic inflammatory diseases in African societies shifting towards more Westernized lifestyle.