The establishment and development of the infant gut microbiome
The Rachel and Selim Benin School of Computer Science and Engineering, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Microbes colonizing the infant gut in the first months of life impact development of immunity and risk for allergic disorders, Type I diabetes and obesity. While multiple factors influence early life microbial composition and dynamics, delivery mode and infant diet (breastfeeding or formula-feeding) are two of the most significant factors.
Here, I will present our experimental system for identifying bacteria that can utilize glycans found in breastmilk, and pinpointing their specific genes that enable this functionality. I will also describe a newly developed computational tool to characterize transmission and dynamics of antibiotic resistant genes.
The higher availability of longitudinal cohorts, coupled with deep metagenomic sequencing (often with additional long-read sequencing) and novel computational tools enable us to push the boundaries of understanding the maternal transmission of microbes and microbial genes.