Biology subjects

Sprenger, N.

Publications and source records attributed to Sprenger, N..

3 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2026

The impact of dietary fibers on gut microbiome of young children: insights from ex vivo experiments and an observational cohort

During weaning period, the intake of dietary fibres changes and increases dramatically. Given the considerable structural differences, we hypothesized that different fibres may vary in their function. The objective of the study was to explore the impact of specific dietary fibres (arabinoxylan, cellulose, pectin and xyloglucan) on the gut microbiome of children below 3 years. By using ex vivo fecal fermentation experiments, cellular models and cohort data analysis, we assessed how these fibres and their combinations influence infants gut microbiota composition, diversity, metabolite production and possible actions on the gut epithelial barrier function. We found that the fermentation with arabinoxylan, xyloglucan and pectin resulted in an increased production of short-chain fatty acids. These fibres also promoted the generation of metabolites with potential health benefits, such as indole-3-lactic acid. By combining the ex vivo fermentation and cellular co-culture experiments, arabinoxylan and xyloglucan were found to be able to maintain gut epithelial barrier integrity upon lipopolysaccharide challenge, and a blend of cellulose, pectin, and xyloglucan dampened different LPS induced cytokines. Moreover, pectin was found supporting the growth of a wide range of microbial species ex vitro and correlated positively with -diversity in young children in an observational cohort. Our findings provided insights into the potential benefits of diverse fibre intakes during early life. Further studies are needed to understand the mechanisms and the effectiveness of specific fibres on the gut microbiome development in young children.

microbiology↗

bioRxiv2022

Jointly analyzing the association of human milk nutrients with cognition and temperament traits during the first 6 months of life

Early dietary exposure via human milk (HM) components offers a window of opportunity to support cognitive and temperamental development. While several studies have focused on associations of few pre-selected HM components with cognition and temperament, it is highly plausible that HM components synergistically and jointly support cognitive and behavioral development in early life. We aimed to discern the combined associations of a wide array of HM nutrients with cognition and temperament during the first six months of life and explore if there were persistent effects up to 18 months old, when HM is the primary source of an infants nutrition. The Mullen Scales of Early Learning and Infant Behavior Questionnaires-Revised were used to assess cognition and temperament, respectively, of fifty-four exclusively/predominantly breastfed infants in the first 6 months of life, whose follow-ups were conducted at 6-9, 9-12 and 12-18 months old. HM samples were obtained from the mothers of the participants at less than 6 months of life and analyzed for fatty acids (total monounsaturated fatty acids, polyunsaturated fatty acid, total saturated fatty acid (TSFA), arachidonic acid (ARA), docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), ARA/DHA, omega-6/omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids ratio (n-6/n-3)), phospholipids (phosphatidylcholine, phosphatidylethanolamine (PE), phosphatidylinositol (PI), sphingomyelin) and choline (free choline, phosphocholine (PCho), glycerophosphocholine). Feature selection was performed to select nutrients associated with cognition and temperament, respectively. The combined effects of selected nutrients were analyzed using multiple regression. A positive association between the arachidonic acid (ARA) and surgency was observed (p = 0.024). Significant effect of DHA, n-6/n-3, PE and TSFA concentrations on receptive language (R2 = 0.39, p = 0.025), and the elevated ARA, PCho, and PI with increased surgency (R2 = 0.43, p = 0.003) was identified, suggesting that DHA and ARA may have distinct roles for temperament and language functions. Furthermore, the exploratory association analyses suggest that the effects of HM nutrients on R.L. and surgency may persist beyond the first 6 months of life, particularly surgency at 12-18 months (p = 0.002). Our studies highlighted that various HM nutrients work together to support the development of cognition and temperament traits during early infancy.

developmental biology↗

bioRxiv2022

Microbiome Toolbox: Methodological approaches to derive and visualize microbiome trajectories

SummaryThe gut microbiome changes rapidly under the influence of different factors such as age, dietary changes or medications to name just a few. To analyze and understand such changes we present a microbiome analysis toolbox. We implemented several methods for analysis and exploration to provide interactive visualizations for easy comprehension and reporting of longitudinal microbiome data. Based on abundance of microbiome features such as taxa as well as functional capacity modules, and with the corresponding metadata per sample, the toolbox includes methods for 1) data analysis and exploration, 2) data preparation including dataset-specific preprocessing and transformation, 3) best feature selection for log-ratio denominators, 4) two-group analysis, 5) microbiome trajectory prediction with feature importance over time, 6) spline and linear regression statistical analysis for testing universality across different groups and differentiation of two trajectories, 7) longitudinal anomaly detection on the microbiome trajectory, and 8) simulated intervention to return anomaly back to a reference trajectory. Availability and implementationThe software tools are open source and implemented in Python. The link to the interactive dashboard is https://microbiome-toolbox.herokuapp.com/. For developers interested in additional functionality of the toolbox, the Python package can be downloaded from https://pypi.org/project/microbiome-toolbox/. The toolbox is modular allowing for further extension with custom methods and analysis. The code is available on Github https://github.com/JelenaBanjac/microbiome-toolbox. ContactShaillayKumar.Dogra@rd.nestle.com Supplementary InformationSupplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

bioinformatics↗