Aberrant newborn T cell and microbiota developmental trajectories predict respiratory compromise during infancy
Andrew McDavid, Nathan Laniewski, Alex Grier, Ann Gill, Haeja A. Kessler, Heidie Huyck, Elizabeth Carbonell, Jeanne Holden‐Wiltse, Sanjukta Bandyopadhyay, Jennifer Carnahan, Andrew M. Dylag, David J. Topham, Ann R. Falsey, Mary T. Caserta, Gloria Pryhuber, Steven R. Gill, Kristin Scheible
Abstract
Neonatal immune-microbiota co-development is poorly understood, yet age-appropriate recognition of - and response to - pathogens and commensal microbiota is critical to health. In this longitudinal study of 148 preterm and 119 full-term infants from birth through one year of age, we found that postmenstrual age or weeks from conception is a central factor influencing T cell and mucosal microbiota development. Numerous features of the T cell and microbiota functional development remain unexplained; however, by either age metric and are instead shaped by discrete perinatal and postnatal events. Most strikingly, we establish that prenatal antibiotics or infection disrupt the normal T cell population developmental trajectory, influencing subsequent respiratory microbial colonization and predicting respiratory morbidity. In this way, early exposures predict the postnatal immune-microbiota axis trajectory, placing infants at later risk for respiratory morbidity in early childhood.