The Paraguayan gut microbiome contains high abundance of the phylum Actinobacteriota and reveals the influence of health and lifestyle factors

ABSTRACT

Most gut microbiome studies are focused on populations from developed nations. However, this overlooks the role played by host genetics, lifestyle, and diet, highlighting the need to evaluate under-represented populations. Thus, we performed the first gut microbiome study from a Paraguayan cohort via 16S rRNA sequencing and PICRUSt2 analysis. We evaluated fecal samples from 60 participants from Asunción, while considering categories such as body-mass-index (BMI), sex, age, diet, lifestyle, and clinical history. Firmicutes (76.0 ± 11.6%), Actinobacteriota (10.4 ± 7.9%) and Bacteroidota (9.4 ± 11.4%) were the most abundant phyla. Similarly, the most abundant genera were Blautia (14.1 ± 7.5%), Faecalibacterium (8.07 ± 6.8%), and Bacteroides (6.7 ± 6.8%). Likewise, the most abundant microbial pathways were predicted to be involved with sugar metabolism and fermentation. Interestingly, some categories significantly impacted the gut microbiome composition and function, such as BMI (Moryella, Bifidobacterium), sex (Faecalibacterium), and others. Additionally, dysbiotic indices differed from values previously reported as homeostatic. These observations highlight the need for further studies, considering microbial species and host genetics. Thus, this work expands the knowledge of the gut microbiome from the Collective South, while contrasts found herein reinforce the need for further research with human populations traditionally understudied.

GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT

KEYWORDS:

• Gut
• microbiome
• Paraguay
• microbial
• diversity
• chronic
• illnesses
• diet
• habits
• Actinobacteriota
• collective
• South

Acknowledgments

This project was funded by the Chancellor’s Office at the National University of Asuncion (UNA), project number FACEN/02/21, and by the Paraguayan Society for Microbiota, Probiotics and Prebiotics (SPMpyP). The authors would like to thank Jonas Fernandez, Kamila Pintos, Martin Nuñez, and Lourdes Cardozo for their assistance in the lab, and Nelson Guzman for sample collection. We would also like to thank Danilo Fernandez for his very kind and generous support by providing us with access to hardware for bioinformatic analysis.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

Data presented in this study are available online at https://dataview.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/object/PRJNA992776, accession number PRJNA992776.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/29933935.2024.2332988.

Additional information

Funding

This study was funded by the Chancellor’s Office at the National University of Asunción (UNA) with project code FACEN/02/21, and by the Paraguayan Society for Microbiota, Probiotics and Prebiotics (SPMpyP).