Infestation in a Child: How a Nematode Can Affect Gut Microbiota.

Strongyloidiasis is a neglected tropical disease caused by the intestinal nematode and characterized by gastrointestinal and pulmonary involvement. We report a pediatric case of strongyloidiasis to underline the response of the host microbiota to the perturbation induced by the nematode. We performed a 16S rRNA-metagenomic analysis of the gut microbiota of a 7-year-old female during and after infection, investigating three time-point of stool samples' ecology: T- during parasite infection, T- a month after parasite infection, and T- two months after parasite infection. Targeted-metagenomics were used to investigate ecology and to predict the functional pathways of the gut microbiota. an increase in the alpha-diversity indices in T-T samples was observed compared to T and healthy controls (CTRLs). Beta-diversity analysis showed a shift in the relative abundance of specific gut bacterial species from T to T samples. Moreover, the functional prediction of the targeted-metagenomics profiles suggested an enrichment of microbial glycan and carbohydrate metabolisms in the T sample compared with CTRLs. The herein report reinforces the literature suggestion of a putative direct or immune-mediated ability of to promote the increase in bacterial diversity.