Helminth-Induced Human Gastrointestinal Dysbiosis: a Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Reveals Insights into Altered Taxon Diversity and Microbial Gradient Collapse
Jonah Kupritz, Angelina Angelova, Thomas B. Nutman, Pedro Henrique Gazzinelli-Guimarães
Abstract
The gut microbiome has established importance in regulating many aspects of human health, including nutrition and immunity. While many internal and environmental factors are known to influence the microbiome, less is known about the effects of intestinal helminth parasites (worms), which together affect one-sixth of the world's population. Through a comprehensive qualitative systematic review and quantitative meta-analysis of existing literature, we provide strong evidence that helminth infection dynamically shifts the intestinal microbiome structure. Moreover, we demonstrated that such influence seems to be specific to helminth species and host anatomical niche. Our findings suggest that the gut microbiome may underlie some of the pathology associated with intestinal worm infection and support future work to understand the precise nature of the helminth-microbiome relationship.