Dominating taxonomic composition of the early life gut microbiota and influencing factors in infants up to seven months of age in Latvia

Abstract It has been hypothesised that the establishment of stable adult microbiota is programmed in infancy, and therefore early life gut colonisation may lead to a lifelong microbiota pattern with significant effects on health. The aim of the study was to analyse the composition of gut microbiota and influencing factors in infants up to seven months of age in Latvia. A cross-sectional study was performed at primary healthcare centres. The parents of healthy infants filled out a questionnaire and brought the child’s faecal sample. 16 rRNS gene sequencing was performed to identify the bacterial taxonomic units. The composition of gut microbiota was compared between children with different risk factors. The final participant sample group included 55 infants with median age 4.0 months. The infant gut microbiota of the sample group had typical and rather healthy microbiota — the main phyla detected were Firmicutes and Actinobacteria, the main family was Bifidobacteriacea and genus — Bifidobacterium. A significant effect of the type of delivery and feeding type was identified, as well as negative correlation between Lactobacilli and gestational age. Further, it would be important to analyse the changes of microbiota prospectively to identify the association with environmental factors and health status in dynamics.