Microbiota colonization is a dynamic process that impacts the health status during one individual’s lifetime. The composition of the gut microbiota of newborns is conditioned by multiple factors, including the delivery mode (DM).
Nonetheless, the DM's influence remains uncertain and is still the subject of debate. In this context, the medical indication and the emergency of a cesarean delivery might have led to confounding conclusions regarding the composition and diversity of the neonatal microbiome.
Herein, with other IPT partners Dr Lamia Guizani (Medical parasitology, biothechnologies, biomolecules), Dr Meriam Belghth and Ms Olfa Magherbi (Transmission, control, immunobiology of infections), using high-resolution shotgun sequencing to decipher the composition and dynamics of the gut microbiota composition of Tunisian newborns.
The elective cesarean newborn microbiota showed an underrepresentation of the health beneficial Bacteroides and an enrichment of opportunistic pathogenic species of the ESKAPE group; specially from the second week.
Besides revealing the intestinal microbiota of Tunisian newborns, this study provides novel insights in the microbiota perturbations caused by elective CS, thus warning on the ever increasing cesarean delivery without clear medical indication. As a perspective to this work, the authers of the study intend to uncover the virome and mycobiome and their interplay with bacterial community, with Institut Pasteur (Paris) partners.
The study is published in Frontiers in Microbiology.