Campylobacterinfection of young children in Colombia and its impact on the gastrointestinal environment

Abstract

AbstractCampylobacterinfections are a leading cause of bacterial-derived gastroenteritis worldwide with particularly profound impacts on pediatric patients in low-and-middle income countries. It remains unclear howCampylobacterimpacts these hosts, though it is becoming increasingly evident that it is a multifactorial process that depends on the host immune response, the gastrointestinal microbiota, various bacterial factors, and host nutritional status. Since these factors likely vary between adult and pediatric patients in different regions of the world, it is important that studies define these attributes in well characterized clinical cohorts in diverse settings. In this study, we analyzed the fecal microbiota and the metabolomic and micronutrient profiles of asymptomatic and symptomatic pediatric patients in Colombia that were either infected or uninfected withCampylobacterduring a case-controlled study on acute diarrheal disease. Here, we report that the microbiome ofCampylobacter-infected children only changed in their abundance ofCampylobacterspp. despite the inclusion of children with or without diarrhea. In addition to increasedCampylobacter,computational models were used to identify fecal metabolites that were associated withCampylobacterinfection and found that glucose-6-phosphate and homovanillic acid were the strongest predictors of infection in these pediatric patients, which suggest that colonocyte metabolism are impacted during infection. Despite changes to the fecal metabolome, the concentrations of intestinal minerals and trace elements were not significantly impacted byCampylobacterinfection, but were elevated in uninfected children with diarrhea.ImportanceGastrointestinal infection with pathogenicCampylobacterspecies has long been recognized as a significant cause of human morbidity. Recently, it has been observed that pediatric populations in low-and-middle income countries are uniquely impacted by these organisms in that infected children can be persistently colonized, develop enteric dysfunction, and exhibit reduced development and growth. While the association ofCampylobacterspecies with these long-term effects continues to emerge, the impact of infection on the gastrointestinal environment of these children remains uncharacterized. To address this knowledge gap, our group leveraged clinical samples collected during a previous study on gastrointestinal infections in pediatric patients to examine the fecal microbiota, metabolome, and micronutrient profiles of those infected withCampylobacterspecies, and found that the metabolome was impacted in a way that suggests gastrointestinal cell metabolism is affected during infection, which is some of the first data indicating how gastrointestinal health in these patients may be affected.