Trichuris trichiura infection status was associated with differences in gut bacterial diversity and overall community composition in 24 Indonesian school-aged children, although no robust taxon-specific associations were identified after FDR correction.
Key Findings
Results
Bacillota was the dominant phylum in both T. trichiura-infected and helminth-uninfected children, with a higher relative abundance in infected children.
Bacillota accounted for 86.20% of bacterial relative abundance in infected children and 79.82% in uninfected children.
Cross-sectional study of 24 school-aged children in West Java, Indonesia (15 T. trichiura monoinfected, 9 without detectable intestinal helminths).
Full-length 16S rRNA gene sequencing was performed on the Oxford Nanopore platform.
Results
Lachnospiraceae was the predominant bacterial family in both groups and was more abundant in infected children.
Lachnospiraceae accounted for 57.20% of relative abundance in infected children versus 44.59% in uninfected children.
Taxonomic composition was compared between groups as part of the descriptive analysis.
Results
Family-level Shannon diversity was significantly lower in T. trichiura-infected children than in uninfected children.
Shannon diversity was 1.720 ± 0.201 in infected versus 1.962 ± 0.280 in uninfected children (p = 0.041).
Infection status was determined using duplicate Kato-Katz examinations.
Results
Simpson diversity did not differ significantly between infected and uninfected children.
The reported p-value was 0.073 for Simpson diversity at the family level.
Results
Infection status was associated with overall gut bacterial community composition (beta diversity).
PERMANOVA gave R2 = 0.126 and p = 0.0077.
Infection status therefore explained about 12.6% of the variation in community composition.
Results
No individual bacterial taxa differed significantly in abundance between groups after false discovery rate correction.
Differential abundance analysis found no taxa that remained statistically significant after FDR correction.
The authors conclude that no robust taxon-specific associations were identified.
Conclusions
The authors characterize the findings as exploratory and call for larger longitudinal studies.
The sample was small (n = 24) and the design cross-sectional, so the direction of any relationship cannot be established.
Prior evidence on gut microbiota variation in relation to T. trichiura infection is described as inconsistent.
What This Means
This study compared the gut bacteria of 24 school-aged children in a rural, worm-endemic area of West Java, Indonesia. Fifteen children were infected with the whipworm Trichuris trichiura and nine had no detectable intestinal worm infections. Researchers sequenced bacterial DNA from stool samples to see whether the bacterial communities differed between the two groups.
Children with whipworm had somewhat lower bacterial diversity (by one measure, Shannon diversity) and a different overall mix of bacteria than uninfected children. Both groups were dominated by the same major groups of bacteria, especially Lachnospiraceae, which was more abundant in infected children. Infection status explained roughly 12.6% of the variation in overall community makeup. A second diversity measure (Simpson) did not differ significantly. When individual bacterial types were tested, none held up as significantly different after correcting for multiple comparisons.
This research suggests whipworm infection may be linked to shifts in the gut bacterial community, but the study is small and looks at one point in time, so it cannot show whether the worm changes the bacteria or whether existing bacterial differences make infection more likely. The authors describe the results as exploratory and say larger studies that follow children over time are needed to confirm them.
Astuti E, Murni I, Dhewantara P, Kusuma R, Saputra S, Nugroho H, et al.. (2026). Gut Microbiota Variation in Relation to Trichuris trichiura Infection Among School-Aged Children in a Helminth-Endemic Area of Indonesia.. Acta parasitologica. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11686-026-01438-3