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  • Maternal Exposure to Endocr...
    Vacca, Mirco; Calabrese, Francesco Maria; Loperfido, Federica; Maccarini, Beatrice; Cerbo, Rosa Maria; Sommella, Eduardo; Salviati, Emanuela; Voto, Luana; De Angelis, Maria; Ceccarelli, Gabriele; Di Napoli, Ilaria; Raspini, Benedetta; Porri, Debora; Civardi, Elisa; Garofoli, Francesca; Campiglia, Pietro; Cena, Hellas; De Giuseppe, Rachele

    Biomedicines, 01/2024, Volume: 12, Issue: 1
    Journal Article

    Endocrine disruptors (EDCs) are chemicals that interfere with the endocrine system. EDC exposure may contribute to the development of obesity, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases by impacting the composition of an infant's gut microbiota during the first 1000 days of life. To explore the relationship between maternal urinary levels of Bisphenol-A and phthalates (UHPLC-MS/MS), and the composition of the infant gut microbiota (16S rDNA) at age 12 months (T ) and, retrospectively, at birth (T ), 1 month (T ), and 6 months (T ), stool samples from 20 infants breastfed at least once a day were analyzed. Metataxonomic bacteria relative abundances were correlated with EDC values. Based on median Bisphenol-A levels, infants were assigned to the over-exposed group (O, n = 8) and the low-exposed group (B, n = 12). The B-group exhibited higher gut colonization of the group genus and the O-group showed higher abundances of and . Additionally, infants were stratified as high-risk (HR, n = 12) or low-risk (LR, n = 8) exposure to phthalates, based on the presence of at least three phthalates with concentrations exceeding the cohort median values; no differences were observed in gut microbiota composition. A retrospective analysis of gut microbiota (T -T ) revealed a disparity in β-diversity between the O-group and the B-group. Considering T -T , the Linear Discriminant Effect Size indicated differences in certain microbes between the O-group vs. the B-group and the HR-group vs. the LR-group. Our findings support the potential role of microbial communities as biomarkers for high EDC exposure levels. Nevertheless, further investigations are required to deeply investigate this issue.