Mother's Milk Microbiome Shaping Fecal and Skin Microbiota in Infants with Food Allergy and Atopic Dermatitis: A Pilot Analysis

The child microbiome, including gut and skin communities, is shaped by a multitude of factors, and breastfeeding is one of the most essential. Food allergy (FA) and atopic dermatitis (AD) are among the most common diseases in pediatrics, with the prevalence of each up to 6% and 20%, respectively. Therefore, we aimed at finding differences between the fecal and skin microbiomes of FA and AD patients in the context of breastfeeding, by means of the Illumina sequencing of 16S rRNA gene fragment libraries amplified from the total DNA isolated from samples collected from allergic and healthy infants. We also analyzed milk samples from the mothers of the examined children and searched for patterns of incidence suggesting milk influence on an infant's allergy status. Here we show that a mother's milk influences her child's fecal and skin microbiomes and identify Acinetobacter as the taxon whose abundance is correlated with milk and child-derived samples. We demonstrate that breastfeeding makes allergic children's fecal and skin communities more similar to those of healthy infants than in the case of formula-feeding. We also identify signature taxa that might be important in maintaining health or allergy development.

Automated summary

The study indicates that mother's milk influences the fecal and skin microbiomes of infants, with specific taxa potentially playing a vital role in maintaining health or allergy development.