Greater alteration of gut microbiota occurs in childhood obesity than in adulthood obesity

Zhongjia Yu; Xiang-Fang Yu; Xiu Zhao; Zhe Su; Pei-Gen Ren

doi:10.3389/fped.2023.1087401

Greater alteration of gut microbiota occurs in childhood obesity than in adulthood obesity

Front Pediatr. 2023 Jan 26:11:1087401. doi: 10.3389/fped.2023.1087401. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Zhongjia Yu¹, Xiang-Fang Yu^{1

2}, Xiu Zhao³, Zhe Su³, Pei-Gen Ren^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Center for Energy Metabolism and Reproduction, Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen, China.
² Shenzhen College of Advanced Technology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen, China.
³ Department of Endocrinology, Shenzhen Children's Hospital, Shenzhen, China.

Abstract

The children's gut microbiota, associated with the development of obesity, is in maturation. The impact of obesity on the gut microbiota in childhood could have a more significant effect than on adulthood and eventually be lifelong lasting, but it has been rarely studied. Aimed to discover the difference in gut microbiota between children and adults with obesity, we collected published amplicon sequencing data from National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) and re-analyzed them using a uniform bioinformatic pipeline, as well as predicted the obesity using gut microbiota based on the random forest model. Summarizing common points among these cohorts, we found that the gut microbiota had a significant difference between children with and without obesity, but this difference was not observed in adult cohorts. Based on the random forest model, it was more challenging to predict childhood obesity using gut microbiota than adulthood obesity. Our results suggest that gut microbiota in childhood is more easily affected than in adulthood. Early intervention for childhood obesity is essential to improve children's health and lifelong gut microbiota-related health.

Keywords: adults; children; data mining; gut microbiota; obesity.

Grants and funding

Authors appreciate the contribution of raw data from incited projects. This work was supported the National Key Research and Development Program of China Grants (2021YFA0719303), Nation Natural Science Foundation of China (32271166), the fellowship of China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2021M703368), the Shenzhen Fundamental Research Program (KCXFZ20201221173400002), Shenzhen Science and Technology Program (JCYJ20200109115441918).