Aashi Makhija

Conference 2023 Presentation

 

Project title

Maternal anxiety and stress induce shifts in diversity and composition of infant microbiome.

 

Authors and Affiliations

Aashi1, Jyoti Taneja1

1. Department Of Zoology, Daulat Ram College-University of Delhi, Delhi, India

 

Abstract

Background

Maternal health and physiology affect the fetus in ways that persist into adulthood. Mothers are the primary source of early-life seeding of the microbiome for their offspring, as they transfer it during birth via the birth canal, by skin-to-skin contact with the mother, and through the breastmilk. Psychological stress, mood disorders and inflammation have all been implicated in alterations in the maternal microbiome community structure which can result in altered microbial communities being passed on to offspring and affecting its neurodevelopment and overall health. The present study comprehends about how maternal stress, anxiety, and depression affect the diversity of the infant microbiome and its related health outcomes with increased species-level resolution.

Methods

A longitudinal study comprising of three prenatal assessments ( in early, mid and late pregnancy) and three postnatal visits was carried out on 46 participants from the Los Angeles. A standardized battery of surveys was used to evaluate feelings and symptoms of stress, depression and anxiety during gestation as well as in the postnatal period. Also the maternal inflammatory cytokine levels were measured. Full-length 16S sequencing of the infant fecal microbiome was used to enable species level resolution of of microbiome communities. To compare the alpha diversity of the infant offspring, three psychosocial measures (the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ) for depression, the Overall Anxiety Severity and Impairment Scale (OASIS) for anxiety, and the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) for stress), were used.

Results

The observed sample was on average 33.6 +/- 4.28 years old at study entry.
A higher maternal PHQ and OASIS values in T0 were correlated with significantly reduced infant microbiome diversity as measured with the Faith’s Phylogenetic Diversity Index (H = 4.37, p <0.05 and H = 2.88, p = 0.089 resp.) at 5-7 years of age. Similarly mothers with higher PSS value at P2 had H = 3.88, p < 0.05. Bacterial species - (Bifidobacterium breve, B. dentium, A. muciniphila, L. rhamnosus, B. longum, B. catenulatum) and alpha diversity from infant stool samples was found statistically associated with inflammatory cytokine levels that greatly affects the infant's ASVs.

Conclusions

Infants with increased abundances of B. dentium, B. longum, and S. salivarius showed lower stress, anxiety, and depression scores. Bifidobacteria are amongst the earliest colonizers of the infant gut. These are found closely intertwined with brain-gut axis function as they modulate the serotonin and GABA levels, thus influencing the neurodevelopment.
Also postpartum maternal depression, stress and cortisol correlated with the infant microbiome thus giving a strong impression that maternal mood and mental health are considerable effectors of the infant microbiome during both prenatal and postpartum period.