Auditorium

The infant gut microbiome is shaped by a range of factors, especially receipt of breastmilk and birth mode. Human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs) are the 4th most abundant component of breastmilk, produced at a large energy expense to the mother, yet provide no nutritional benefit to the infant. Instead, they primarily act as growth substrates to modulate the infant gut microbiome, promoting the growth of ‘probiotic’ bacteria such as Bifidobacterium that are specially adapted to exploit HMOs. Preterm infants born between 22-32 weeks gestation have immature intestinal architecture and an underdeveloped immune system. They are also less likely to be vaginally delivered, receive less maternal milk, and receive limited exposure to microbes during the first months of life, leading to a reduction in potentially beneficial bacteria. This has been implicated in the pathogenesis of necrotising enterocolitis (NEC), a serious inflammatory mediated bowel disease representing the leading cause of death in this population. My talk will cover our work that has sought to understand the main factors influencing term and preterm gut microbiome development. I will build on this to highlight recent work exploring the link between HMOs in preterm breastmilk, infant gut microbiome, and risk of being diagnosed with NEC. I will finish by introducing a recently engineered model system that allows viable co-culture of anaerobic bacteria with intestinal organoids by recapitulating the oxygen gradient across the epithelium. Such work seeks to understand diet-microbe-host interaction and has important translational relevance for novel disease biomarkers or therapeutics.