Contribution of Gut Microbiota Toward Malaria in African Children

Join us for "Contribution of Gut Microbiota Toward Malaria in African Children: New Points of Intervention," presented by Nathan Schmidt, professor of pediatrics at Indiana University School of Medicine.

Malaria is a major public health problem, but many of the factors underlying the pathogenesis of this disease are not well understood. Gut microbiota have been implicated in severe malaria in murine models, but their contribution to the pathogenesis of severe malaria in children is unknown.

In this presentation, Schmidt provides data that demonstrate specific species of Bacteroides are causally linked to the risk of severe malaria in mice and are significantly more abundant in Ugandan children with severe malarial anemia than in children with asymptomatic Plasmodium falciparum infection. Using pre-transmission-season stool samples from Malian children with longitudinal assessment of P. falciparum infection over the ensuing transmission season and germ-free mice colonized with bacteria from a subset of those stool samples, Schmidt demonstrates that gut microbiota may play a causal role in determining susceptibility to malaria in African children. Finally, Schmidt will show through analysis of gut bacteria in stool samples from African children with severe malaria and children from local communities that children with severe malaria have gut bacteria dysbiosis. Among children with severe malaria there is increased abundance of Enterobacteriaceae that associates with multiple clinical complications of severe malaria. Moreover, increased abundance of Escherichia coli was a predictor of post-discharge mortality. Collectively, this data provides evidence that gut microbiota might contribute to malaria outcomes in African children and may represent a potential point of novel treatments to prevent children from dying of severe malaria.