Towards large-cohort comparative studies to define the factors influencing the gut microbial community structure of ASD patients
Abstract
Differences in the gut microbiota have been reported between individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and neurotypical controls, although direct evidence that changes in the microbiome contribute to causing ASD has been scarce to date. Here we summarize some considerations of experimental design that can help untangle causality in this complex system. In particular, large cross-sectional studies that can factor out important variables such as diet, prospective longitudinal studies that remove some of the influence of interpersonal variation in the microbiome (which is generally high, especially in children), and studies transferring microbial communities into germ-free mice may be especially useful. Controlling for the effects of technical variables, which have complicated efforts to combine existing studies, is critical when biological effect sizes are small. Large citizen-science studies with thousands of participants such as the American Gut Project have been effective at uncovering subtle microbiome effects in self-collected samples and with self-reported diet and behavior data, and may provide a useful complement to other types of traditionally funded and conducted studies in the case of ASD, especially in the hypothesis generation phase.
- Authors:
-
- Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, CO (United States)
- Columbia Univ. Mailman School of Public Health, New York, NY (United States)
- Univ. of Colorado Denver, Aurora, CO (United States)
- Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States); Univ. of Chicago, Chicago, IL (United States); Marine Biological Lab., Woods Hole, MA (United States); Zhejiang Univ., Hangzhou (China)
- Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, CO (United States); Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Boulder, CO (United States)
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1209267
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC02-06CH11357
- Resource Type:
- Journal Article: Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Microbial Ecology in Health and Disease (Online)
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 26; Journal ID: ISSN 1651-2235
- Publisher:
- Co-Action Publishing
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES; autism; microbiology; microbiome; neurological
Citation Formats
McDonald, Daniel, Hornig, Mady, Lozupone, Catherine, Debelius, Justine, Gilbert, Jack A., and Knight, Rob. Towards large-cohort comparative studies to define the factors influencing the gut microbial community structure of ASD patients. United States: N. p., 2015.
Web. doi:10.3402/mehd.v26.26555.
McDonald, Daniel, Hornig, Mady, Lozupone, Catherine, Debelius, Justine, Gilbert, Jack A., & Knight, Rob. Towards large-cohort comparative studies to define the factors influencing the gut microbial community structure of ASD patients. United States. https://doi.org/10.3402/mehd.v26.26555
McDonald, Daniel, Hornig, Mady, Lozupone, Catherine, Debelius, Justine, Gilbert, Jack A., and Knight, Rob. Mon .
"Towards large-cohort comparative studies to define the factors influencing the gut microbial community structure of ASD patients". United States. https://doi.org/10.3402/mehd.v26.26555. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1209267.
@article{osti_1209267,
title = {Towards large-cohort comparative studies to define the factors influencing the gut microbial community structure of ASD patients},
author = {McDonald, Daniel and Hornig, Mady and Lozupone, Catherine and Debelius, Justine and Gilbert, Jack A. and Knight, Rob},
abstractNote = {Differences in the gut microbiota have been reported between individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and neurotypical controls, although direct evidence that changes in the microbiome contribute to causing ASD has been scarce to date. Here we summarize some considerations of experimental design that can help untangle causality in this complex system. In particular, large cross-sectional studies that can factor out important variables such as diet, prospective longitudinal studies that remove some of the influence of interpersonal variation in the microbiome (which is generally high, especially in children), and studies transferring microbial communities into germ-free mice may be especially useful. Controlling for the effects of technical variables, which have complicated efforts to combine existing studies, is critical when biological effect sizes are small. Large citizen-science studies with thousands of participants such as the American Gut Project have been effective at uncovering subtle microbiome effects in self-collected samples and with self-reported diet and behavior data, and may provide a useful complement to other types of traditionally funded and conducted studies in the case of ASD, especially in the hypothesis generation phase.},
doi = {10.3402/mehd.v26.26555},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1209267},
journal = {Microbial Ecology in Health and Disease (Online)},
issn = {1651-2235},
number = ,
volume = 26,
place = {United States},
year = {2015},
month = {3}
}
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