Metagenome of the gut of a malnourished child

Our results indicate that the malnourished child gut has an abundance of enteric pathogens which are known to cause intestinal inflammation resulting in malabsorption of nutrients. We also identified a few functional sub-systems from these pathogens, which probably impact the overall metabolic capabilities of the malnourished child gut.The present study comprehensively characterizes the microbial community resident in the gut of a malnourished child. This study has attempted to extend the understanding of the basis of malnutrition beyond nutrition deprivation.Malnutrition is a major global problem. While one form of malnutrition (referred to as under-nutrition) encompasses stunting, wasting, and deficiencies of essential vitamins and minerals, the other form manifests as obesity due to over-consumption of specific nutrients. The prevalence of underweight, stunting, and wasting in children, the most reliable measures of malnutrition, is concentrated in few countries in South Asia and Eastern Africa [1,2] where 33% and 28%, respectively, of the children younger than 5 years are underweight. Despite its rapid economic growth in the last decade, the estimated prevalence of child stunting in India is 51%. This translates to approximately 61 million stunted children, constituting 34% of the global total. Efforts to reduce the proportion of underweight children by half by the year 2015 is set as the first millennium development goal (MDG-1) by the United Nations.The consequences of malnutrition are devastating. These include diarrhoea, malabsorption, small bowel overgrowth, increased intestinal permeability, enteropathy, gram-negative (enteric) bacteraemia, and suboptimal immune response [3,4]. Nutritional interventions and dietary solutions have not been the most effective till date for treatment of malnutrition. However, recent literature sheds some light on our simplistic understanding of the basis of malnutrition. Composition of host gut microbiome has been thought to