Content area
Full text
About the Authors:
Audrie Lin
Affiliation: Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, United States of America
Elisabeth M. Bik
Affiliation: Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, United States of America
Elizabeth K. Costello
Affiliation: Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, United States of America
Les Dethlefsen
Affiliation: Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, United States of America
Rashidul Haque
Affiliation: International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh, Dhaka, Bangladesh
David A. Relman
Contributed equally to this work with: David A. Relman, Upinder Singh
* E-mail: [email protected] (DAR); [email protected] (US)
Affiliations Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, United States of America, Department of Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, United States of America, Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System, Palo Alto, California, United States of America
Upinder Singh
Contributed equally to this work with: David A. Relman, Upinder Singh
* E-mail: [email protected] (DAR); [email protected] (US)
Affiliations Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, United States of America, Department of Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, United States of America
Introduction
Of the 1.2 billion global adolescent population, 88% live in developing nations where the incidence of environmental enteropathy – a multifaceted, subclinical intestinal disorder encompassing repeated episodes of infectious gastroenteritis, chronic inflammation, and malnutrition – ranges from 50–95% [1], [2], [3]. It is thought that the human indigenous gut microbiota may potentially serve a critical role in this disorder [4]. To date, the human gut microbiota has been characterized in depth using molecular approaches from individuals in only a few low-income areas of the developing world [5]. Recent work highlights the importance of geography in explaining the gut microbiota composition of adults and children [6], [7] and underscores the need to select additional geographic settings in an effort to characterize the global extent of human-associated microbial diversity [8]. Furthermore, the influence of geography on the temporal stability of the composition of the gut microbiota within healthy individuals has not previously been examined, in part because of the difficulty in obtaining serial samples from a consistently healthy...