Results Description of the study population Of the 158 children recruited

in this study, LY2603618 datasheet 54% were boys. Maternal or paternal asthma was present in 8% and 5% of the children, respectively. Several children were lost for follow-up at the end of the 3 year study period. As a result, API at age 3 years could not be determined in 41 of the 158 children due to missing data on wheezing (n = 30) or on eczema (n = 9) of the child in the 6 monthly questionnaires or on parental asthma (n = 5). As described previously, there were no differences in the percentage of children with wheeze at any age, MK-0457 chemical structure parental asthma, and eczema at any age or gender of the infant between children who could or could not be categorized according to API [14]. In 7 children insufficient fecal sample was available to perform a DGGE analysis. API was positive in 24/110 (22%) of the remaining children. Fecal microorganisms in the study population A total of 145 fecal samples were collected,

which is a response rate of 92%. The Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium primers did not show any correlation with the API index (data not shown). With the universal V6-V8 primers only 1 single

band (band 54.2) correlated significantly with the API index (Chi square, p = 0.04). After adjustment for exclusive breast feeding, maternal smoking during pregnancy, infant use of antibiotics at age of 3 weeks, parental socio-economic status and gender in a multivariate logistic regression analysis, the V6-V8 band 54.2 remained significantly associated with the API index (OR = 4.0, CI 1.2-12.9) (table 2). Excision and sequencing of band 54.2 revealed a DNA fragment of 397 bp [EMBL:FN611010] showing 98% similarity with an uncultured bacterial sequence isolated from a human fecal DCLK1 sample (table 3). The highest sequence similarity with a known see more species was obtained for Eubacterium contortum, Clostridium oroticum and Ruminococcus torques (table 3). These species belong to the Clostridium subcluster XIVa proposed by Collins et al. [15], which constitutes a major part of the human fecal flora [16]. Table 2 Multiple logistic regression analysis of risk factors for outcome variable Asthma Predictive Index at age 3 years   V6-V8 band 54.2 V3 band 60.1 BF band 45.