Gut Microbiota of Healthy and Malnourished Children in Bangladesh

Poor health and malnutrition in preschool children are longstanding problems in Bangladesh. Gut microbiota plays a tremendous role in nutrient absorption and determining the state of health. In this study, metagenomic tool was employed to assess the gut microbiota composition of healthy and malnourished children. DNA was extracted from fecal samples of seven healthy and seven malnourished children (n = 14; age 2-3 years) were analyzed for the variable region of 16S rRNA genes by universal primer PCR followed by high-throughput 454 parallel sequencing to identify the bacterial phyla and genera. Our results reveal that the healthy children had a significantly higher number of operational taxonomic unit in their gut than that of the malnourished children (healthy vs. malnourished: 546…