{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,6,24]],"date-time":"2026-06-24T06:36:06Z","timestamp":1782282966040,"version":"3.54.5"},"reference-count":20,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"24","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2025,12,13]],"date-time":"2025-12-13T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1765584000000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/100000062","name":"National Institutes of Health NIDDK","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["R01 DK121975"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["R01 DK121975"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/100000062","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Nutrients"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Background\/Objectives: Preterm infants often require increased caloric intake to maintain appropriate growth while in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Emerging evidence suggests that alterations of the gut microbiome may play a role in infant and childhood growth patterns. The fecal microbiome patterns in infants with normal and poor growth patterns were classified in this study. Methods: We conducted a prospective trial of infants of less than 29 weeks\u2019 gestation with an embedded case\u2013control analysis of infants with normal or poor growth patterns. Fecal samples were collected weekly from infants on full enteral feeds and analyzed blindly using 16s rRNA next-generation sequencing. The relationship between gut microbial diversity and composition and growth pattern and trajectory were assessed. Results: A total of 115 infants were enrolled in the trial with 263 fecal samples selected from 87 enrolled infants for analysis. In total, 37 samples were available from the normal growth cohort, 56 samples from the poor growth cohort, and 170 samples were available for analysis from the very poor growth cohort. Analysis of relative abundance revealed increased representation of Veillonella, Bifidobacterium, and Clostridium in very poor growth infants compared to normal growth infants. Variation in specific taxa was also found to vary significantly across post-menstrual age depending on the degree of growth failure. Conclusions: Gut microbiome composition and variance was modified by the degree of growth failure in our cohort of preterm infants. Our study adds to the growing body of evidence that alteration of the microbiome is associated with poor growth in preterm infants. This may ultimately represent a therapeutic target for growth failure in preterm infants.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/nu17243907","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2025,12,15]],"date-time":"2025-12-15T13:32:37Z","timestamp":1765805557000},"page":"3907","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":2,"title":["Gut Microbiome Composition and Variance Are Modified by Degree of Growth Failure in Preterm Infants: A Prospective Study"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"17","author":[{"given":"Katherine A.","family":"Stumpf","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Division of Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX 75390, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Miranda","family":"Green","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Neuroscience, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON L8S 4L8, Canada"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Xinying","family":"Niu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Division of Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX 75390, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Dongmei","family":"Lu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Division of Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX 75390, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-1790-6656","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Shuheng","family":"Gan","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Quantitative Biomedical Research Center, Peter O\u2019Donnell Jr. School of Public Health, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX 75390, USA"},{"name":"Center for Genetics of Host Defense, School of Public Health, University of Texas Southwestern, Dallas, TX 75390, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-6249-7193","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Xiaowei","family":"Zhan","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Center for Genetics of Host Defense, School of Public Health, University of Texas Southwestern, Dallas, TX 75390, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Maricel N.","family":"Maxey","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Parkland Health, Dallas, TX 75235, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Monica","family":"Boren","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Parkland Health, Dallas, TX 75235, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0009-0006-3167-1423","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Sujir Pritha","family":"Nayak","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Division of Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX 75390, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Sana","family":"Jaleel","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Division of Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX 75390, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-0047-5407","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"L. Steven","family":"Brown","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Parkland Health, Dallas, TX 75235, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-8579-4705","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Jane A.","family":"Foster","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Neuroscience, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON L8S 4L8, Canada"},{"name":"Center for Depression Research and Clinical Care, Department of Psychiatry, O\u2019Donnell Brain Institute, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX 75390, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Julie","family":"Mirpuri","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Division of Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX 75390, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2025,12,13]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"100220","DOI":"10.1016\/j.advnut.2024.100220","article-title":"Expected and Desirable Preterm and Small Infant Growth Patterns","volume":"15","author":"Fenton","year":"2024","journal-title":"Adv. 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