New microbes linked to severe diarrhea identified

Researchers have identified microorganisms that may trigger diarrheal disease and others that may protect against it.
Diarrhea is a major cause of childhood mortality in developing countries and ranks as one of the top four causes of death among young children in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.
"We were able to identify interactions between microbiota that were not previously observed, and we think that some of those interactions may actually help prevent the onset of severe diarrhea," said O Colin Stine, a professor of epidemiology and public health at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.
A much better understanding of these interactions is important, Stine added, as they could lead to possible dietary interventions.

Stine and Mihai Pop, an associate professor of computer science at the University of Maryland, College Park used a technique called high-throughput 16S rRNA genomic sequencing to examine both "good" and "bad" microbiota - the tens of trillions of microbes that inhabit the human intestinal system.
The samples were taken from 992 children in Bangladesh, The Gambia, Kenya and Mali under the age of 5 who were suffering from MSD.

The researchers identified statistically significant disease associations with several organisms already implicated in diarrheal disease, such as members of the Escherichia/Shigella genus and Campylobacter jejuni.
They also found that organisms not widely believed to cause the disease, including Streptococcus and Granulicatella, correlated with the condition in their study.

In addition, the study found that the Prevotella genus and Lactobacillus ruminis may play a protective role against diarrhea.
The research is published in the journal Genome Biology.