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Effects of β-Lactam Antibiotics on Gut Microbiota Colonization and Metabolites in Late Preterm Infants

Current Microbiology volume 77, pages 3888–3896 (2020)Cite this article

Abstract

We usually refer to the critical period for intestinal flora establishment as infancy because the infant gut microbiota is characterized by low diversity and poor stability compared with that of adults. Moreover, it is also vulnerable to interference from a variety of factors. As β-lactam antibiotics are typically used in newborn infants with infectious diseases, we used 16S rDNA sequencing and LC–MS metabolomics to analyze fecal microbes and metabolites in 16 late preterm infants with or without β-lactam antibiotic treatment. The subjects were assigned to two groups: one not treated with antibiotics and another receiving β-lactam antibiotic treatment for less than seven days. Significant changes in fecal microbes and metabolites were observed in the late preterm infants treated with antibiotics, including a reduction in the diversity of the gut microbiota overall and some beneficial bacteria such as Bacteroides, whereas some opportunistic pathogenic bacteria such as Enterococcus showed an overgrowth trend. In addition, significant changes in some crucial metabolites were observed, such as amino acids and bile acids. These findings show that treatment with β-lactam antibiotics might affect the intestinal flora and its metabolites in late preterm infants in a short time period.

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Data Availability

The datasets generated during and/or analyses during the current study are available in the NCBI Sequence Read Archive (SRA) database (BioProject ID PRJNA553585).

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Acknowledgements

We would like to express our sincere thanks to all nurses, physicians, and research staff at the hospital for their assistance and invaluable support for this project.

Funding

This work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Guangxi Province, China (2017GXNSFAA198165).

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  1. Siliang Lu and Qingmei Huang These authors contributed equally to this work.

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  1. Department of Pediatrics, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Guangxi Medical University, Nanning, Guangxi, China

    Siliang Lu, Qingmei Huang, Bingmei Wei & Yujun Chen

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Contributions

SLL wrote the first version of the manuscript. YJC, QMH, and SLL designed the study protocol. SLL and QMH collected the fecal samples and participated in the data analysis. BMW, QMH created the figures and tables. All authors contributed to reviewing and revising the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Yujun Chen.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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The experimental protocol was established, according to the ethical guidelines of the Helsinki Declaration and was approved by the Human Ethics Committee of The Second Affiliated Hospital of Guangxi Medical University.

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Written informed consent was obtained from individual or guardian participants.

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Lu, S., Huang, Q., Wei, B. et al. Effects of β-Lactam Antibiotics on Gut Microbiota Colonization and Metabolites in Late Preterm Infants. Curr Microbiol 77, 3888–3896 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00284-020-02198-7

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