Diversity of the gut microbiota and eczema in early life

Erick Forno¹^,3^,4 , Andrew B Onderdonk¹^,3^,5 , John McCracken⁶ , Augusto A Litonjua¹^,2^,3 , Daniel Laskey¹ , Mary L Delaney¹^,5 , Andrea M DuBois¹^,5 , Diane R Gold¹^,3 , Louise M Ryan⁶ , Scott T Weiss¹^,3 and Juan C Celedón¹^,2^,3

¹Channing Laboratory Boston, MA, USA

²Division of Pulmonary/Critical Care Medicine, Dept. of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA, USA

³Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

⁴Division of Pediatric Pulmonology, Dept. of Pediatrics, Children's Hospital, Boston, MA, USA

⁵Dept. of Pathology, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA, USA

⁶Dept. of Biostatistics, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA

author email corresponding author email

Clinical and Molecular Allergy 2008, 6:11doi:10.1186/1476-7961-6-11


Published:	22 September 2008

Abstract

Background

A modest number of prospective studies of the composition of the intestinal microbiota and eczema in early life have yielded conflicting results.

Objective

To examine the relationship between the bacterial diversity of the gut and the development of eczema in early life by methods other than stool culture.

Methods

Fecal samples were collected from 21 infants at 1 and 4 months of life. Nine infants were diagnosed with eczema by the age of 6 months (cases) and 12 infants were not (controls). After conducting denaturating gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) of stool samples, we compared the microbial diversity of cases and controls using the number of electrophoretic bands and the Shannon index of diversity (H') as indicators.

Results

Control subjects had significantly greater fecal microbial diversity than children with eczema at ages 1 (mean H' for controls = 0.75 vs. 0.53 for cases, P = 0.01) and 4 months (mean H' for controls = 0.92 vs. 0.59 for cases, P = 0.02). The increase in diversity from 1 to 4 months of age was significant in controls (P = 0.04) but not in children who developed eczema by 6 months of age (P = 0.32).

Conclusion

Our findings suggest that reduced microbial diversity is associated with the development of eczema in early life.