Predominance of Extreme Environmental Conditions at High Altitude in
Modulating Human Gut Microbiota
Abstract
Human microbial alterations are associated with environmental stress,
nutritional, genetic and triggering de-novo variations. Nevertheless,
human gut microbiome at extreme altitude (>5800 m) remains
unexplored. We aimed to demonstrate the microbial predominance in
individuals with same ethnicity and dietary pattern at extreme altitude
with unique challenges like cold, hypoxia, radiation etc. Different
analysis pipelines were used for fecal whole genome sequencing at 210m,
3500m, 4420m and 5805m, and 16s rRNA V3-V4 regions amplification
sequencing of 19 individuals belonging to the same ethnicity and dietary
pattern, for presence of taxonomy & functional potential and confirming
the prediction upto the strain level within the same cohort. Principal
component analysis, revealed distinct microbiome changes at different
altitudes, with varied and higher Bacteroides and Prevotella ratio.
There was predominance of genus Prevotella at altitudes 4420m & 5805m
than at 210m & 3500m. Appearance of species Prevotella copri strain
61740 was increasing significantly at extreme altitudes, whereas
co-occurrence of other bacterial strains had different pattern than
Prevotella. The extensive strain level analysis indicated alteration in
the metabolic pathways. This study under stressful and hypoxic
environment of extreme altitudes, associated microbial variation with
altered metabolic pathways, reveals influence of extreme environment on
human gut microbiota with predominance of Prevotella.