Study of the diversity and short-chain fatty acids production by the bacterial community in overweight and obese Mexican children

• Published in: European journal of clinical microbiology & infectious diseases Vol. 34; no. 7; pp. 1337 - 1346
• Main Authors: Murugesan, S., Ulloa-Martínez, M., Martínez-Rojano, H., Galván-Rodríguez, F. M., Miranda-Brito, C., Romano, M. C., Piña-Escobedo, A., Pizano-Zárate, M. L., Hoyo-Vadillo, C., García-Mena, J.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 01.07.2015; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Bacteria; Bacteria - classification; Bacteria - genetics; Bacteria - metabolism; Biodiversity; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Biomedicine; Case-Control Studies; Child; Chronic illnesses; Colon; Disease; Fatty acids; Fatty Acids - biosynthesis; Feces; Feces - chemistry; Feces - microbiology; Female; Humans; Inflammatory bowel disease; Internal Medicine; Lipid Metabolism; Male; Medical Microbiology; Metabolism; Metabolites; Mexico; Microbiota; Obesity; Obesity - etiology; Obesity - metabolism; Overweight; Overweight - etiology; Overweight - metabolism; Phenotype; Public health; Signal transduction; Mexico; Obese Child; Colon Microbiota; Bacterial Diversity; Normal Weight Child; Mexican Child
• ISSN: 0934-9723; 1435-4373
• DOI: 10.1007/s10096-015-2355-4

Obesity and overweight are health problems of multifactorial etiology, which may include changes in the microbiome. In Mexico, more than 30 % of the child population between 5 and 11 years of age suffer from being overweight or are obese, which makes it a public health issue in progress. The purpose of this work was to measure the short-chain fatty acid concentration by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), and to characterize the bacterial diversity by ion torrent semiconductor sequencing, of 16S rDNA libraries prepared from stools collected from a sample of well-characterized Mexican children for normal weight, overweight, and obese conditions by anthropometric and biochemical criteria. We found that triglyceride levels are increased in overweight and obese children, who presented altered propionic and butyric acid concentrations in feces. In addition, although the colon microbiota did not show a clear bacterial dysbiosis among the three conditions, the abundance of some particular bacteria was changed with respect to normal controls. We conclude from our results that the imbalance in the abundance of at least nine different bacteria as well as altered short-chain fatty acid concentration in feces is associated to the overweight and obese conditions of Mexican children.