ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Microbiol.
Sec. Microorganisms in Vertebrate Digestive Systems
This article is part of the Research TopicNew and advanced mechanistic insights into the influences of the infant gut microbiota on human health and disease, Volume IIView all 12 articles
Association between infants' serum 26 metals and gut microbiota: a hospital-based cross-sectional study in China
Provisionally accepted
Xing Yan1
Jun Qiu2
Ruiwen Huang2Xiaoming Peng2
Shiting Xiang2Kunyan Zhao3Yunlong Peng4
Yan Zhuang2
Ye Ma2
Mingyang Wu1*
Fei Yang3*- 1Central South University Xiangya School of Public Health, Changsha, China
- 2Hunan Children's Hospital, Changsha, China
- 3University of South China, Hengyang, China
- 4Soochow University, Suzhou, China
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This study examined the associations of toxic metals, essential metals, and rare earth elements on infant gut microbiota at Hunan Children's Hospital, China. Generalized linear regression (GLR) was used to assess individual metal associations with alpha diversity, while Bayesian kernel machine regression (BKMR) and weighted quantile sum (WQS) regression were applied to evaluate metal mixture-taxa relationships. Results showed barium (Ba) and arsenic (As) were positively associated with the Chao1 index, whereas chromium (Cr), antimony (Sb), tungsten (W), cobalt (Co), copper (Cu), lanthanum (La), praseodymium (Pr), and uranium (U) showed negative associations. Six antagonistic interactions were identified: Cr-W (β = -2.57), Cr-La (β = -3.82), Tl-As (β = -4.48), As-La (β = -4.31), As-Pr (β = -5.85), and La-Pr (β = -2.38). Two synergistic interactions were observed: Sb-Pr (β = 2.17) and Sb-U (β = 2.14). BKMR analysis identified Mn as a key contributor to Burkholderia-Caballeronia-Paraburkholderia abundance (PIP = 0.535). Metal mixture exposure was positively linked to Ralstonia abundance, with As having the highest contribution (PIP = 0.886). Cu was the primary driver of Clostridium_sensu_stricto_1 abundance (PIP = 0.867), with synergistic Mn-Cu (β = 0.797) and Ba-Cu (β = 0.720) interactions. These findings demonstrate that As and Cu are the most influential metals on gut microbial alpha diversity, while Cu, As and Mn significantly influence specific microbial taxa, providing novel epidemiological evidence on metal-gut microbiota interactions in vulnerable infants.
Keywords: infants, Metals mixture, MaAslin2, Rare earth metals, Gut Microbiota
Received: 19 Jul 2025; Accepted: 19 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Yan, Qiu, Huang, Peng, Xiang, Zhao, Peng, Zhuang, Ma, Wu and Yang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Mingyang Wu, mingyangwu@csu.edu.cn
Fei Yang, yangfeilong@126.com
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