Biology subjects

Gaona, O.

Publications and source records attributed to Gaona, O..

3 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2025

Microbial Diversity and Ecological Structure of the Gut Microbiota in Children and Adults from an Indigenous Mexican Community

Gut microbiota composition is shaped by environmental factors such as lifestyle, diet, socioeconomic and cultural context, as well as host-related factors like age and sex. Although microbiota research has expanded rapidly in recent years, most current paradigms are based on data from individuals in high-income, industrialized countries, particularly in Europe and North America. As a result, microbiota profiles from non-Westernized populations--especially those from Indigenous communities--remain underrepresented in global studies, limiting our understanding of the full ecological and evolutionary diversity of human gut microbial communities. In this study, we characterized the bacterial gut microbiota of Mephaa individuals, a pre-Columbian Indigenous group from the south-central region of Mexico. This rural community maintains a subsistence lifestyle centered on high-fiber, plant-based diets and limited exposure to industrialized foods. Using high-throughput 16S rRNA gene sequencing, we analyzed microbial profiles from 62 individuals aged 5 to 60 years, examining differences across age and sex to explore patterns of diversity and community structure. Despite sharing similar life conditions, noticeable differences in gut microbiota were observed; alpha and beta diversities revealed significant variation across age and sex. Children exhibited greater microbial richness and inter-individual variability, consistent with dynamic colonization processes that begin in early life. In contrast, adults showed more taxonomically uniform communities, with a higher abundance of taxa such as Prevotellaceae, Succinivibrio, and Dialister, which are associated with fiber fermentation and complex carbohydrate metabolism. Additionally, sex-related differences were evident, with adult males displaying the highest relative abundance of Prevotellaceae. Finally, the presence of taxonomic groups rarely observed in urban Western populations suggests that indigenous lifestyles may preserve microbial diversity with potential metabolic relevance. Our findings advance the ecological and evolutionary understanding of human gut microbiota and highlight the importance of integrating non-Westernized populations into microbiome research to better elucidate host-microbe coadaptation and its implications for health.

microbiology↗

bioRxiv2020

We think what we eat: Animal-based diet influences cerebral and microbiota networks connectivity in early ages. A study case of an indigenous community in Mexico.

We are not individuals, we are much better described as ecosystems due to trillions of bacteria and other microorganisms that inhabit us. We now know that gut microbiota can greatly influence many physiological parameters that in turn may impact several cognitive functions, such as learning, memory, and decision making processes. This mutualistic symbiotic relation known as the gut-brain axis is also constrained by external factors such as dietary habits such as animal protein and lipids intake. Using a novel combination of Machine Learning and Network Theory techniques, we provide evidence from an indigenous population in Guerrero Mexico, that both brain and gut-microbiota connectivity, evaluated by Minimum Spanning Tree as the critical backbone of information flow, diminish under either low protein or lipids intake. We discuss then how this loss of connectivity may translate into a reduction of the individuals capacity to cope with perturbations as loss of connectivity may be linked with losses in antifragility.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2019

Human gut microbiota networks disturbance by parasites in indigenous communities: Effect on bacteria genera related to depression incidence subnetworks

If you think you are in control of your behavior, think again. Evidence suggests that behavioral modifications, as development and persistence of depression, may be the consequence of a complex network of communication between macro (i.e. parasites) and micro-organisms capable of modifying the physiological axis of the host. Some parasites cause significant nutritional deficiencies for the host and impair the effectiveness of cognitive processes such as memory, teaching or non-verbal intelligence. Bacterial communities mediate the establishment of parasites and vice versa but this complexity approach remains little explored. We study the gut microbiota-parasite interactions using novel techniques of network analysis using data of individuals from two indigenous communities in the state of Guerrero, Mexico. Our results suggest that A. Lumbricoides, induce a gut microbiota perturbation affecting subnetworks of key species related to depression, consisting in the loss of network features such as path length, heterogeneity, number of nodes and neighbors; and especially by the loss of information emergence. Emergence is related with adaptability that has been linked to the concept of health as a critical balance between (adaptability) and self-organization (robustness). In this way, the loss of emergence means a depart from criticality and ultimately loss of health.

ecology↗