Sex- and age-related trajectories of the adult human gut microbiota shared across populations of different ethnicities

Abstract

Lifelong sex- and age-related trajectories of the human gut microbiota remain largely unexplored. Using metagenomics, we derived the gut microbial composition of 2,338 adults (26-76 years) from a Han Chinese population-based cohort where metabolic health, hormone levels and aspects of their lifestyles were also recorded. In this cohort, and in three independent cohorts distributed across China, Israel and the Netherlands, we observed sex differences in the gut microbial composition and a shared age-related decrease in sex-dependent differences in gut microbiota. Compared to men, the gut microbiota of premenopausal women exhibited higher microbial diversity and higher abundances of multiple species known to have beneficial effects on host metabolism. We also found consistent sex-independent, age-related gut microbial characteristics across all populations, with the presence of members of the oral microbiota being the strongest indicator of older chronological age. Our findings highlight the existence of sex- and age-related trajectories in the human gut microbiota that are shared between populations of different ethnicities and emphasize the pivotal links between sex hormones, gut microbiota and host metabolism.