Breastfeeding Contributes to Physiological Immune Programming in the Newborn

The first 1,000 days in the life of a human being are a vulnerable stage where early stimuli may program adverse health outcomes in future life. Proper maternal nutrition before and during pregnancy modulates the development of the fetus, a physiological process known as fetal programming. Defective programming promotes non-communicable chronic diseases in the newborn which might be prevented by postnatal interventions such as breastfeeding. Breast milk provides distinct bioactive molecules that contribute to immune maturation, organ development, and healthy microbial gut colonization, and also secures a proper immunological response that protects against infection and inflammation in the newborn. The gut microbiome provides the most critical immune microbial stimulation in the newborn in early life, allowing a well-trained immune system and efficient metabolic settings in healthy subjects. Conversely, negative fetal programming by exposing mothers to diets rich in fat and sugar has profound effects on breast milk composition and alters the immune profiles in the newborn. At this new stage, newborns become vulnerable to immune compromise, favoring susceptibility to defective microbial gut colonization and immune response. This review will focus on the importance of breastfeeding and its immunological biocomponents that allow physiological immune programming in the newborn. We will highlight the importance of immunological settings by breastfeeding, allowing proper microbial gut colonization in the newborn as a window of opportunity to secure effective immunological response.

Classifying streaming data using grammar-based immune programming

This work proposes a technique for classifying unlabelled streaming data using grammar-based immune programming, a hybrid meta-heuristic where the space of grammar generated solutions is searched by an artificial immune system inspired algorithm. Data is labelled using an active learning technique and is buffered until the system trains adequately on the labelled data. The system is employed in static and in streaming data environments, and is tested and evaluated using synthetic and real-world data. The performances of the system employed in different data settings are compared with each other and with two benchmark problems. The proposed classification system adapted well to the changing nature of streaming data and the active learning technique made the process less computationally expensive by retaining only those instances which favoured the training process.

Classifying streaming data using grammar-based immune programming

This work proposes a technique for classifying unlabelled streaming data using grammar-based immune programming, a hybrid meta-heuristic where the space of grammar generated solutions is searched by an artificial immune system inspired algorithm. Data is labelled using an active learning technique and is buffered until the system trains adequately on the labelled data. The system is employed in static and in streaming data environments, and is tested and evaluated using synthetic and real-world data. The performances of the system employed in different data settings are compared with each other and with two benchmark problems. The proposed classification system adapted well to the changing nature of streaming data and the active learning technique made the process less computationally expensive by retaining only those instances which favoured the training process.

Probiotics in obstetric practice: efficacy and safety

The intestinal microbiota modulates immune programming and can prevent the realization of an allergic phenotype. For the formation of a normal microbiocenosis of the intestine, skin and oral cavity, a sufficient quantitative and qualitative bacterial colonization of the newborn is necessary during the transition from a sterile intrauterine environment to microbial colonization, resulting in the appearance of more than 1014 microorganisms. Low levels of bifidobacteria and early colonization of potentially pathogenic bacteria are associated with the development of severe allergic reactions. Prescribing probiotics containing Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG (LGG) at a concentration of 1081010 CFU from 36 weeks of gestation and during the first 34 months of lactation is associated with a 21% reduction in the risk of allergic reactions in the child.

Altered Stool Microbiota of Infants with Cystic Fibrosis Shows a Reduction in Genera Associated with Immune Programming from Birth

ABSTRACT Previous work from our group indicated an association between the gastrointestinal microbiota of infants with cystic fibrosis (CF) and airway disease in this population. Here we report that stool microbiota of infants with CF demonstrates an altered but largely unchanging within-individual bacterial diversity (alpha diversity) over the first year of life, in contrast to the infants without CF (control cohort), which showed the expected increase in alpha diversity over the first year. The beta diversity, or between-sample diversity, of these two cohorts was significantly different over the first year of life and was statistically significantly associated with airway exacerbations, confirming our earlier findings. Compared with control infants, infants with CF had reduced levels of Bacteroides, a bacterial genus associated with immune modulation, as early as 6 weeks of life, and this significant reduction of Bacteroides spp. in the cohort with CF persisted over the entire first year of life. Only two other genera were significantly different across the first year of life: Roseburia was significantly reduced and Veillonella was significantly increased. Other genera showed differences between the two cohorts but only at selected time points. In vitro studies demonstrated that exposure of the apical face of polarized intestinal cell lines to Bacteroides species supernatants significantly reduced production of interleukin 8 (IL-8), suggesting a mechanism whereby changes in the intestinal microbiota could impact inflammation in CF. This work further establishes an association between gastrointestinal microbiota, inflammation, and airway disease in infants with CF and presents a potential opportunity for therapeutic interventions beginning in early life. IMPORTANCE There is growing evidence for a link between gastrointestinal bacterial communities and airway disease progression in CF. We demonstrate that infants with CF ≤1 year of age show a distinct stool microbiota versus that of control infants of a comparable age. We detected associations between the gut microbiome and airway exacerbation events in the cohort of infants with CF, and in vitro studies provided one possible mechanism for this observation. These data clarify that current therapeutics do not establish in infants with CF a gastrointestinal microbiota like that in healthy infants, and we suggest that interventions that direct the gastrointestinal microbiota closer to a healthy state may provide systemic benefits to these patients during a critical window of immune programming that might have implications for lifelong health.