{"doi":"10.1016/j.ebiom.2024.105362","title":"Bifidobacterium longum and microbiome maturation modify a nutrient intervention for stunting in Zimbabwean infants","abstract":"BACKGROUND: Small-quantity lipid-based nutrient supplements (SQ-LNS), which has been widely tested to reduce child stunting, has largely modest effects to date, but the mechanisms underlying these modest effects are unclear. Child stunting is a longstanding indicator of chronic undernutrition and it remains a prevalent public health problem. The infant gut microbiome may be a key contributor to stunting; and mother and infant fucosyltransferase (FUT) phenotypes are important determinants of infant microbiome composition. METHODS: We investigated whether mother-infant FUT status (n = 792) and infant gut microbiome composition (n = 354 fecal specimens from 172 infants) modified the impact of an infant and young child feeding (IYCF) intervention, that included SQ-LNS, on stunting at age 18 months in secondary analysis of a randomized trial in rural Zimbabwe. FINDINGS: We found that the impact of the IYCF intervention on stunting was modified by: (i) mother-infant FUT2+/FUT3- phenotype (difference-in-differences -32.6% [95% CI: -55.3%, -9.9%]); (ii) changes in species composition that reflected microbiome maturation (difference-in-differences -68.1% [95% CI: -99.0%, -28.5%); and (iii) greater relative abundance of B. longum (differences-in-differences 49.1% [95% CI: 26.6%, 73.6%]). The dominant strains of B. longum when the intervention started were most similar to the proficient milk oligosaccharide utilizer subspecies infantis, which decreased with infant age and differed by mother-infant FUT2+/FUT3- phenotypes. INTERPRETATION: These findings indicate that a persistently \"younger\" microbiome at initiation of the intervention reduced its benefits on stunting in areas with a high prevalence of growth restriction. FUNDING: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, UK DFID/Aid, Wellcome Trust, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, US National Institutes of Health, UNICEF, and Nutricia Research Foundation.","journal":"EBioMedicine","year":2024,"id":445607,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":7,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.954,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2024-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":650566,"name":"Thaddeus J. Edens","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":649609,"name":"Lynnea Carr","orcid":"0000-0002-2397-8672","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":484776,"name":"Ruairi C. Robertson","orcid":"0000-0002-3719-2056","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":346615,"name":"Kuda Mutasa","orcid":null,"position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":345424,"name":"Robert Ntozini","orcid":"0000-0002-8543-2835","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":345427,"name":"Bernard Chasekwa","orcid":"0000-0001-8080-7573","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":650567,"name":"Hyun Min Geum","orcid":null,"position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":649608,"name":"Iman Baharmand","orcid":"0000-0001-7311-8681","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":650568,"name":"Sandeep K. Gill","orcid":null,"position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":346614,"name":"Batsirai Mutasa","orcid":null,"position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":352810,"name":"Mduduzi N. N. Mbuya","orcid":"0000-0003-1230-2367","position":11,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":345428,"name":"Florence D. Majo","orcid":"0009-0006-1282-0462","position":12,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":346613,"name":"Naume V. Tavengwa","orcid":null,"position":13,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":266188,"name":"Freddy Francis","orcid":"0000-0001-6822-691X","position":14,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":502283,"name":"Joice Tome","orcid":null,"position":15,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":345426,"name":"Ceri Evans","orcid":"0000-0001-9122-9748","position":16,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":289252,"name":"Margaret Kosek","orcid":"0000-0001-6340-4852","position":17,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":345432,"name":"Andrew J. Prendergast","orcid":"0000-0001-7904-7992","position":18,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":484778,"name":"Amee R. Manges","orcid":"0000-0003-2462-7249","position":19,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":649607,"name":"Ethan Gough","orcid":"0000-0001-5265-7731","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":89,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:01:46.243344Z","pmid":"39341154","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}