Affiliations 

  • 1 School of Science, Monash University Malaysia, Jalan Lagoon Selatan, 47500, Bandar Sunway, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia. jacky.dwiyanto@monash.edu
  • 2 School of Science, Monash University Malaysia, Jalan Lagoon Selatan, 47500, Bandar Sunway, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia
  • 3 Health System and Population Studies Division, International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh, Dhaka, Bangladesh
  • 4 School of Pharmacy, Monash University Malaysia, Bandar Sunway, Malaysia
  • 5 School of Science, Monash University Malaysia, Jalan Lagoon Selatan, 47500, Bandar Sunway, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia. sadequr.rahman@monash.edu
Sci Rep, 2021 01 29;11(1):2618.
PMID: 33514807 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-82311-3

Abstract

No studies have investigated the influence of ethnicity in a multi-ethnic middle-income country with a long-standing history of co-habitation. Stool samples from 214 Malaysian community members (46 Malay, 65 Chinese, 49 Indian, and 54 Jakun) were collected. The gut microbiota of the participants was investigated using 16S amplicon sequencing. Ethnicity exhibited the largest effect size across participants (PERMANOVA Pseudo-F = 4.24, R2 = 0.06, p = 0.001). Notably, the influence of ethnicity on the gut microbiota was retained even after controlling for all demographic, dietary factors and other covariates which were significantly associated with the gut microbiome (PERMANOVA Pseudo-F = 1.67, R2 = 0.02, p = 0.002). Our result suggested that lifestyle, dietary, and uncharacterized differences collectively drive the gut microbiota variation across ethnicity, making ethnicity a reliable proxy for both identified and unidentified lifestyle and dietary variation across ethnic groups from the same community.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.