Effects of Diet on the Microbiome and Serum Metabolome of South Asian Infants at 1 Year

Diet is known to affect the gut microbiome and metabolome composition in adults, but this has not been fully explored in infants. Dietary patterns from 1 year-old infants (n=182) from the South Asian Birth Cohort (START) study were compared to gut microbiome alpha and beta diversity and to taxa abundance differences. Diet - serum metabolite associations were identified using multivariate analysis (partial least squares-discriminant analysis, PLS-DA) and univariate analysis (T-Test). Dietary biomarkers identified from START were also examined in a separate cohort of white Caucasian infants (CHILD Cohort Study, n=82). Lastly, the association of diet with gut microbiome and serum biomarkers, considering maternal, perinatal and infant characteristics was investigated using multivariate forward stepwise regression. A dietary pattern characterized by breastfeeding, supplemented by formula and dairy was the strongest predictor of the gut microbiome that also differentiated the serum metabolome of infants. The formula and dairy dietary pattern was associated with a panel of circulating metabolites in both cohorts, including: S-methylcysteine, branched-chain/aromatic amino acids, lysine, dimethylglycine, and methionine. Breastfeeding status, the prominent feature of the dietary pattern, was also associated with a sub-set of serum metabolites in both cohorts. In START, this diet pattern was associated with the metabolites tryptophan betaine, 2-hydroxybutyric acid, tyrosine, phenylalanine, and trimethyl-N-oxide. In the CHILD Cohort Study(CHILD), breastfeeding status was associated with the metabolites aminooctanoic acid, 3-hydroxybutyric acid, and methyl-proline. The results of our study suggest that breastfeeding has the largest effect on the composition of the gut microbiome and the serum metabolome at 1 year, even when solid food diet and other covariates are considered.