The person-to-person transmission landscape of the gut and oral microbiomes

VALLES-COLOMER, M.; BLANCO-MÍGUEZ, A.; MANGHI, P.; ASNICAR, F.; DUBOIS, L.; GOLZATO, D.; ARMANINI, F.; CUMBO, F.; HUANG, K.; MANARA, S.; MASETTI, G.; PINTO, F.; PIPERNI, E.; PUNčOCHÁř, M.; RICCI, L.; ZOLFO,, M.; FARRANT, O.; GONCALVES, A.; SELMA-ROYO, M.; BINETTI, A.; BECERRA, J.; HAN, B.; LUSINGU, J.; AMUASI, J.; AMOROSO, L.; VISCONTI, A.; STEVES, C.; FALCHI, M.; FILOSI, M.; TETT, A.; LAST, A.; XU, K.; QIN, H.; MAY, J.; EIBACH, D.; CORRIAS, V.; PONZONI., M.; PASOLLI, E.; SPECTOR, T.; DOMENICI, E.; COLLADO, M. C.; SEGATA, N.

NATURE

NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP

Lugar: Londres; Año: 2023

0028-0836

The human microbiome is an integral component of the human body and aco-determinant of several health conditions1,2. However, the extent to whichinterpersonal relations shape the individual genetic makeup of the microbiome andits transmission within and across populations remains largely unknown3,4. Here,capitalizing on more than 9,700 human metagenomes and computational strain-levelprofiling, we detected extensive microorganism strain sharing across individuals(more than 10 million instances) with distinct mother-to-infant, intra-household andintra-population transmission patterns. Mother-to-infant gut microbiome transmissionwas considerable and stable during infancy (around 50% of the same strains amongshared species (the strain-sharing rate)) and remained detectable at older ages. Bycontrast, the transmission of the oral microbiome occurred largely horizontally andwas enhanced by the duration of cohabitation. There was substantial strain sharingamong cohabiting individuals, with 12% and 32% median strain-sharing rates for thegut and oral microbiomes, and time since cohabiting affected strain sharing morethan age or genetics. Microorganism strain sharing additionally recapitulated hostpopulation structures better than species-level profiles. Finally, distinct taxa appearedas efficient spreaders across transmission modes and were associated with differentpredicted bacterial phenotypes linked with out-of-host survival capabilities. Theextent of microorganism transmission that we describe underscores its relevance inhuman microbiome studies5, especially those on non-infectious, microbiomeassociateddiseases.