Gut microbiome strain-sharing within isolated village social networks

Abstract

Abstract When humans assemble into face-to-face social networks, they create an extended environment that permits exposure to the microbiome of other members of a population. Social network interactions may thereby also shape the composition and diversity of the microbiome at individual and population levels. Here, we use comprehensive social network and detailed microbiome sequencing data in 1,098 adults across 9 isolated villages in Honduras to investigate the relationship between social network structure and microbiome composition. Using both species-level and strain-level data, we show that microbial sharing occurs between many relationship types, notably including non-familial and non-household connections. Using strain-sharing data alone, we can confidently predict a wide variety of relationship types (AUC ~0.73). This strain-level sharing extends to second-degree social connections in a network, suggesting the importance of the extended network with respect to microbiome composition. We also observe that socially central individuals are more microbially similar to the overall village than those on the social periphery. Finally, we observe that clusters of microbiome species and strains occur within clusters of people in the village social networks, providing the social niches in which microbiome biology and phenotypic impact are manifested.