AUTHOR=Stamps Blake W. , Lyon Wanda J. , Irvin Adam P. , Kelley-Loughnane Nancy , Goodson Michael S. 

TITLE=A Pilot Study of the Effect of Deployment on the Gut Microbiome and Traveler’s Diarrhea Susceptibility

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology

VOLUME=10

YEAR=2020

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/cellular-and-infection-microbiology/articles/10.3389/fcimb.2020.589297

DOI=10.3389/fcimb.2020.589297

ISSN=2235-2988

ABSTRACT=<p>Traveler’s diarrhea (TD) is a recurrent and significant issue for many travelers including the military. While many known enteric pathogens exist that are causative agents of diarrhea, our gut microbiome may also play a role in TD susceptibility. To this end, we conducted a pilot study of the microbiome of warfighters prior to- and after deployment overseas to identify marker taxa relevant to TD. This initial study utilized full-length 16S rRNA gene sequencing to provide additional taxonomic resolution toward identifying predictive taxa.16S rRNA analyses of pre- and post-deployment fecal samples identified multiple marker taxa as significantly differentially abundant in subjects that reported diarrhea, including <italic>Weissella</italic>, <italic>Butyrivibrio</italic>, <italic>Corynebacterium</italic>, uncultivated Erysipelotrichaceae, <italic>Jeotgallibaca</italic>, unclassified Ktedonobacteriaceae, <italic>Leptolinea</italic>, and uncultivated Ruminiococcaceae. The ability to identify TD risk prior to travel will inform prevention and mitigation strategies to influence diarrhea susceptibility while traveling.</p>