Research

The gut microbiome but not the resistome is associated with urogenital schistosomiasis in preschool-aged children

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Abstract

Helminth parasites have been shown to have systemic effects in the host. Using shotgun metagenomic sequencing, we characterise the gut microbiome and resistome of 113 Zimbabwean preschool-aged children (1–5 years). We test the hypothesis that infection with the human helminth parasite, Schistosoma haematobium, is associated with changes in gut microbial and antimicrobial resistance gene abundance/diversity. Here, we show that bacteria phyla Bacteroidetes, Firmicutes, Proteobacteria, and fungi phyla Ascomycota, Microsporidia, Zoopagomycota dominate the microbiome. The abundance of Proteobacteria, Ascomycota, and Basidiomycota differ between schistosome-infected versus uninfected children. Specifically, infection is associated with increases in Pseudomonas, Stenotrophomonas, Derxia, Thalassospira, Aspergillus, Tricholoma, and Periglandula, with a decrease in Azospirillum. We find 262 AMR genes, from 12 functional drug classes, but no association with individual-specific data. To our knowledge, we describe a novel metagenomic dataset of Zimbabwean preschool-aged children, indicating an association between urogenital schistosome infection and changes in the gut microbiome. Osakunor et al. show that infection of Zimbabwean preschool-aged children with Schistosoma haematobium correlates with abundance changes in Pseudomonas, Stenotrophomonas, Derxia, Thalassospira, Aspergillus, Tricholoma, Periglandula, and Azospirillum. This study provides a microbiome and resistome dataset of African preschool-aged children.