Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • News & Views
  • Published:

Infections

Feeding the microbial multitudes: co-infection in a malnourished host

Childhood malnutrition is a global health issue influenced by poorly understood microbial interactions. A new model of co-infection in mice now sheds light on the complex interplay between pathogens, the host and the resident gut microbiota during malnutrition.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: A model of co-infection.

References

  1. Black, R. E. et al. Maternal and child undernutrition and overweight in low-income and middle-income countries. Lancet 382, 427–451 (2013).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  2. Larsen, D. A., Grisham, T., Slawsky, E. & Narine, L. An individual-level meta-analysis assessing the impact of community-level sanitation access on child stunting, anemia, and diarrhea: evidence from DHS and MICS surveys. PLoS Negl. Trop. Dis. 11, e0005591 (2017).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  3. Blanton, L. V., Barratt, M. J., Charbonneau, M. R., Ahmed, T. & Gordon, J. I. Childhood undernutrition, the gut microbiota, and microbiota-directed therapeutics. Science 352, 1533–1533 (2016).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  4. Kosek, M. N. et al. Causal pathways from enteropathogens to environmental enteropathy: findings from the MAL-ED birth cohort study. EBioMedicine 18, 109–117 (2017).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  5. Bartelt, L. A. et al. Cross-modulation of pathogen-specific pathways enhances malnutrition during enteric co-infection with Giardia lamblia and enteroaggregative Escherichia coli. PLoS Pathog. 13, e1006471 (2017).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  6. Brown, E. M. et al. Diet and specific microbial exposure trigger features of environmental enteropathy in a novel murine model. Nat. Commun. 6, 7806 (2015).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  7. Kau, A. L. et al. Functional characterization of IgA-targeted bacterial taxa from undernourished Malawian children that produce diet-dependent enteropathy. Sci. Transl Med. 7, 276ra24 (2015).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  8. Sonnenburg, J. L. & Bäckhed, F. Diet-microbiota interactions as moderators of human metabolism. Nature 535, 56–64 (2016).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  9. Mayneris-Perxachs, J. et al. Urinary N-methylnicotinamide and β-aminoisobutyric acid predict catch-up growth in undernourished Brazilian children. Sci. Rep. 6, 19780 (2016).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  10. Reynolds, L. A. et al. Enteric helminths promote Salmonella coinfection by altering the intestinal metabolome. J. Infect. Dis. 215, 1245–1254 (2017).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to B. Brett Finlay.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

PowerPoint slides

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Huus, K., Finlay, B. Feeding the microbial multitudes: co-infection in a malnourished host. Nat Rev Gastroenterol Hepatol 14, 695–696 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrgastro.2017.133

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrgastro.2017.133

Search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing