# Gut Viral and Bacterial Associations with Celiac Disease in the TEDDY Cohort

> **NIH NIH R01** · BAYLOR COLLEGE OF MEDICINE · 2021 · $676,575

## Abstract

The goal of this project is to examine stool and sera of 900 children previously collected from the prospective
cohort TEDDY study, to determine if changes in microbiome or virus infections or both are linked to
development of autoimmunity that leads to celiac disease. Previous studies and emerging evidence have
implicated several viruses and microbiome signatures with celiac disease but have not proven strong linkage
and have resulted inconclusive findings for the celiac disease field. The current application is an ancillary
research project of the large international 15 year prospective TEDDY Study that is designed to find
environmental triggers of Type 1 Diabetes and has had 297 children develop celiac disease but not T1D
autoimmunity. The project will utilize the large scale and international scope of TEDDY and its rich genetic and
dietary data on these children, to study this new celiac case-control cohort. We will use proven next
generation sequencing, qRT-PCR and serologic approaches recently carried out for microbiome and virome
analysis for T1D outcomes with TEDDY. Aim 1 will discover and analyze the complete stool virome in these
children over time, before conversion to tTGA autoimmunity and celiac disease, to identify viruses associated
with celiac autoimmunity and disease. Aim 2 will examine the microbiome structure over time to determine
bacterial taxa or functions associated with celiac disease development and will derive complete genomic
sequences of key variant bacteria found associated with disease outcomes. Both of these aims will identify
agents that contribute independently to the risk of celiac outcomes, controlling for confounders or other
components of the disease with regression approaches. Aim 3 will probe further to determine if there is
synergy or interactions of viruses or bacteria with other known risk factors such as the child's gluten intake and
genetic risk (HLA and known associated SNPs). This will identify the set(s) of components that may contribute
synergistically to cause CD outcomes. The proposed work is significant since it will apply the power of the
larger and international TEDDY cohort and its rich database of genetic analyses of children to study
progressively collected stools and sera to determine viruses and/or microbiome signatures that are linked to
tTGA autoimmunity and celiac disease. The proposed work is innovative because it will provide the first
comprehensive analysis of virome and microbiome components sufficient to cause celiac disease outcomes
that may work synergistically. These findings will lead to a better understanding of what triggers celiac disease
that will be more relevant for developing hypotheses of causal mechanisms and will open conceptual avenues
for key diagnostic or preventative interventions.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10240455
- **Project number:** 5R01DK124581-02
- **Recipient organization:** BAYLOR COLLEGE OF MEDICINE
- **Principal Investigator:** Daniel Agardh
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $676,575
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2020-08-20 → 2024-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10240455

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10240455, Gut Viral and Bacterial Associations with Celiac Disease in the TEDDY Cohort (5R01DK124581-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10240455. Licensed CC0.

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