Paediatric research articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here, using diagnostic tools in a longitudinal cohort of ZIKV-infected pregnant women of the French Guiana Western Hospital Center (CHOG) and their infants, the authors investigate the long term neuropathological effects of congenital infection, finding that a laboratory confirmed congenital ZIKV infection at birth is associated with higher risks of adverse neurological outcomes up to three years of life.

    • Najeh Hcini
    • , Yaovi Kugbe
    •  & Léo Pomar

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Narcolepsy type 1 (NT1) is a severe sleep disorder with strong association to the HLA type DQB1*0602 and increased incidence among children vaccinated with the Influenza A vaccine Pandemrix. Here the authors show that these children develop T and B cell autoimmunity against protein-O-mannosyltransferase 1 via cross-reactivity.

    • A. Vuorela
    • , T. L. Freitag
    •  & O. Vaarala

  • Article
    | Open Access

    It is still challenging to make accurate diagnosis of biliary atresia (BA) with sonographic gallbladder images particularly in rural areas without relevant expertise. Here, the authors develop a diagnostic deep learning model which favourable performance in comparison with human experts in multi-center external validation.

    • Wenying Zhou
    • , Yang Yang
    •  & Luyao Zhou

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Control of mosquito populations using pesticides is important for malaria elimination, but effects of pesticides on humans aren’t well understood. Here, Prahl et al. show in a cohort of pregnant Ugandan women and their infants that household spraying with bendiocarb affects the fetal immune system and response to vaccination in infancy.

    • Mary Prahl
    • , Pamela Odorizzi
    •  & Margaret E. Feeney

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Children with SARS-CoV-2 infection are more likely to have mild symptoms and may be asymptomatic, but underlying reasons remain unclear. Here, the authors show cellular, cytokine and antibody response to SARS-CoV-2 infection in three children who repeatedly tested negative for the virus by PCR, despite high exposure in the household.

    • Shidan Tosif
    • , Melanie R. Neeland
    •  & Nigel W. Crawford

  • Article
    | Open Access

    There are a growing number of reports of neonatal SARS-CoV-2 infections. Here, De Luca and colleagues systematically analyse 176 published cases to better understand the route of transmission, as well as the clinical features and outcomes of neonatal COVID-19.

    • Roberto Raschetti
    • , Alexandre J. Vivanti
    •  & Daniele De Luca

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Three-dimensional imaging of the fetal heart and quantification of blood flow in the surrounding vessels is very challenging because the heart is small and the fetus is free to move in the womb. Here, the authors demonstrate motion-corrected 4D flow MRI of the whole fetal heart and major vessels.

    • Thomas A. Roberts
    • , Joshua F. P. van Amerom
    •  & Joseph V. Hajnal

  • Article
    | Open Access

    COVID-19 disease is less common in children than adults, but the extent to which SARS-CoV-2 infections are missed through symptom-driven testing is not well understood. In this study, the authors show that approximately 1% of children seeking care for reasons other than COVID-19 at a Seattle hospital in March/April 2020 were seropositive for SARS-CoV-2.

    • Adam S. Dingens
    • , Katharine H. D. Crawford
    •  & Jesse D. Bloom

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Surfactant protein B (SP-B) deficiency is a genetic lung disease that results in lethal respiratory distress within months of birth. Here, the authors describe a gene therapy strategy using a rationally designed AAV6 capsid that restores surfactant homeostasis, prevents lung injury, and improves survival in a mouse model of SP-B deficiency.

    • Martin H. Kang
    • , Laura P. van Lieshout
    •  & Bernard Thébaud

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Streptococcus pneumoniae is an opportunistic pathogen and asymptomatic colonization is a precursor for invasive disease. Here the authors show rapid within-host evolution of naturally acquired pneumococci in ninety-eight infants driven by high nucleotide substitution rates and intra-host homologous recombination.

    • Chrispin Chaguza
    • , Madikay Senghore
    •  & Brenda A. Kwambana-Adams

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Milk breastfeeding and prebiotic-supplemented formulas have varying effects on the infant gut microbiome. Here, in a randomized controlled clinical trial, the authors investigate the effects of a Lactobacillus paracasei-fermented formula on the immune defense mechanisms, microbiota and its metabolome in full term infants.

    • Paola Roggero
    • , Nadia Liotto
    •  & Maria Rescigno

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here, the authors report the results of a randomized, placebo controlled trial of children with acute gastroenteritis who were treated with a probiotic and find no virus-specific beneficial effects attributable to the probiotic, either in reducing clinical symptoms or clearance of viral nucleic acid from stool specimens.

    • Stephen B. Freedman
    • , Jianling Xie
    •  & Marc H. Gorelick

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Incidence of food allergy in westernized populations is associated with low abundance of Prevotella. Here, the authors analyse the microbiome of a mother-infant prebirth cohort and find that maternal carriage, but not infant carriage, of P. copri during pregnancy predicts the absence of food allergy in the offspring.

    • Peter J. Vuillermin
    • , Martin O’Hely
    •  & Esther Bandala Sanchez

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Food allergy is triggered by IgE, but some individuals are not allergic to peanuts despite making peanut-specific IgE, and are considered peanut-tolerant. Here, the authors identify differences in blood immune cell composition of peanut-allergic and tolerant infants using mass cytometry, which may help uncover the mechanism of allergic tolerance.

    • Melanie R. Neeland
    • , Sandra Andorf
    •  & Kari C. Nadeau

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In this longitudinal study, the authors tracked the course of brain development from birth to adolescence (age 13 years) and examined the effects of very preterm birth. Very preterm children showed slower brain growth from age 0 (term equivalent) to age 7.

    • Deanne K. Thompson
    • , Lillian G. Matthews
    •  & Peter J. Anderson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Early adversity may sensitize people to the effects of later stress, amplifying psychopathology risk. Here, the authors show this stress sensitization effect for adolescents who experienced prolonged institutional deprivation in childhood, but not those assigned to foster care intervention.

    • Mark Wade
    • , Charles H. Zeanah
    •  & Charles A. Nelson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    How the airway microbiome influences asthma pathophysiology remains unclear. Here, the authors analyse nasal samples of cohort of school-age children with persistent asthma and find that the microbiota’s patterns and composition at time of early loss of asthma control associate with severe asthma exacerbations.

    • Yanjiao Zhou
    • , Daniel Jackson
    •  & Avraham Beigelman

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here, in a cohort of infants unexposed to maternal antibiotics, the authors analyse the gut microbiome development of children born naturally and by caesarean section, finding a higher abundance of known pathogens in the latter group, and an association between these bacteria and a higher incidence of respiratory infections in the first year of life.

    • Marta Reyman
    • , Marlies A. van Houten
    •  & Debby Bogaert

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Tuberculosis meningitis (TBM) is a severe form of TB with limited treatment options. Here, the authors perform RNA sequencing on whole blood and on ventricular and lumbar cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) samples from pediatric patients treated for TBM to characterize the immune response and tissue damage.

    • Ursula K. Rohlwink
    • , Anthony Figaji
    •  & Rachel P. J. Lai

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The development of neonatal necrotising enterocolitis has been temporally associated with red blood cell transfusions in retrospective human studies. Here, the authors develop a neonatal mouse model of necrotising enterocolitis in anaemic mice receiving red blood cell transfusion that recapitulates features of the human condition.

    • Krishnan MohanKumar
    • , Kopperuncholan Namachivayam
    •  & Akhil Maheshwari

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Birthweight has been found to associate with later-life health outcomes. Here the authors perform a meta-analysis of epigenome-wide association studies of 8,825 neonates from 24 birth cohorts in the Pregnancy And Childhood Epigenetics Consortium, identifying differentially methylated CpGs in neonatal blood that associate with birthweight.

    • Leanne K. Küpers
    • , Claire Monnereau
    •  & Janine F. Felix

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Early life microbiome is affected by factors such as mode of delivery, gestational age at birth and feeding regime. Here, the authors show that gestational age at birth still imprints on the microbiome at four years of age, suggesting a link between altered microbiome in prematurity and long term health implications.

    • Fiona Fouhy
    • , Claire Watkins
    •  & Catherine Stanton

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Estimates of the burden of malaria often don't take wider, indirect effects on overall health into consideration. Here, Uyoga et al. estimate the indirect impact of malaria on children’s health in a case-control study, using the sickle cell trait as a proxy indicator for an effective intervention.

    • Sophie Uyoga
    • , Alex W. Macharia
    •  & Thomas N. Williams

  • Article
    | Open Access

    It is unclear whether the sequence and timing of early life neurodevelopment varies across human populations, excluding the effects of disease or malnutrition. Here, the authors show that children of healthy, urban, educated mothers show very similar development across five geographically diverse populations.

    • José Villar
    • , Michelle Fernandes
    •  & Stephen Kennedy

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Some perinatally HIV infected children who have received early antiretroviral therapy (ART) show long-term sustained virological control after ART cessation. Here the authors describe a case who, at age 9.5 years, shows normal CD4:CD8 T cell ratios and has no detectable levels of replication-competent virus.

    • Avy Violari
    • , Mark F. Cotton
    •  & Caroline T. Tiemessen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Studies on the effects of breastfeeding on the infant gut microbiota have provided inconsistent results. Here, Ho et al. perform a meta-analysis of seven studies across different populations, supporting that exclusive breastfeeding is associated with short-term and long-term alterations in the infant gut microbiota.

    • Nhan T. Ho
    • , Fan Li
    •  & Louise Kuhn

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Osteosarcoma is a heterogeneous bone tumour with a high mutational rate. Here the authors use an RGB-based single-cell tracking system to track clonal dynamics in a mouse model of osteosarcoma, which their findings indicate follows a neutral evolution model in which different clones simultaneously coexist and propagate.

    • Stefano Gambera
    • , Ander Abarrategi
    •  & Javier García-Castro

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Gut microbial dysbiosis has been implicated in the pathogenesis of inflammatory bowel disease. Here, the authors examine host-microbiota protein interactions that occur in inflammatory bowel disease; they show an upregulation in proteins related to antimicrobial activities, and alterations in intestinal extracellular vesicles that are associated with aberrant microbiota-interactions.

    • Xu Zhang
    • , Shelley A. Deeke
    •  & Daniel Figeys

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors previously developed a mouse model of parenteral nutrition-associated cholestasis (PNAC) that is dependent on parenteral phytosterols and intestinal injury with DSS. Here they refine the model and show that PNAC pathology is dependent on recruitment of hepatic macrophages and IL-1 signaling.

    • Karim C. El Kasmi
    • , Padade M. Vue
    •  & Ronald J. Sokol

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Gut microbial dysbiosis in infancy is associated with childhood atopy and the development of asthma. Here, the authors show that gut microbiota perturbation is evident in the very earliest stages of postnatal life, continues throughout infancy, and can be partially rescued by Lactobacillus supplementation in high-risk for asthma infants.

    • Juliana Durack
    • , Nikole E. Kimes
    •  & Susan V. Lynch

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Colonization of commensal bacteria is thought to impact immune development, especially in the earliest years of life. Here, the authors show, by analyzing the development of the gut microbiome of 690 children, that microbial composition at the age of 1 year is associated with asthma diagnosed in the first 5 years of life.

    • Jakob Stokholm
    • , Martin J. Blaser
    •  & Hans Bisgaard

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Inflammation mediated by microglia plays a key role in brain injury associated with preterm birth, but little is known about the microglial response in preterm infants. Here, the authors integrate molecular and imaging data from animal models and preterm infants, and find that microglial expression of DLG4 plays a role.

    • Michelle L. Krishnan
    • , Juliette Van Steenwinckel
    •  & Pierre Gressens

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Mothers advocate eating healthy foods while children like to eat tasty foods. Lim and colleagues demonstrate that children incorporate their mothers' food choices while deciding what to eat as well as provide the neural correlates of this decision making process.

    • Seung-Lark Lim
    • , J. Bradley C. Cherry
    •  & Amanda S. Bruce

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The impact of antibiotics on the microbiome and health of children is poorly understood. Here, Korpela et al. study the gut microbiome of 142 children and show that the use of macrolides, but not penicillins, is associated with long-lasting shifts in microbiota composition and increased risk of asthma and overweight.

    • Katri Korpela
    • , Anne Salonen
    •  & Willem M. de Vos

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The ability to fight infections matures after birth and is thus termed ‘trained immunity’. Here the authors show that cord blood cells from hepatitis B virus-infected mothers respond more strongly to bacterial infections, suggesting that viral exposure in uteropromotes trained immunity in newborns.

    • Michelle Hong
    • , Elena Sandalova
    •  & Antonio Bertoletti

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