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A Protective Probiotic for ALS Found - Neuroscience News
To study the neuroprotective effects of a probiotic-based dietary supplement on this animal model, Labarre tested a total of 13 different bacterial strains and three strain combinations.
HA-114 stood out from the pack. The action of the probiotic helped reduce motor disorders in models with ALS and also Huntington’s disease, another neurodegenerative disease.
How gut bacteria could boost cancer treatments
Increasingly, research is showing that the gut microbiome can have good or bad effects on the progression of distant tumours, the side effects of treatments and the ability of the immune system to pick off cancer cells. Some research has linked specific bacteria to beneficial effects, which could point to tailored treatments. And scientists are exploring the role of diet and gut-microbe diversity, as well as revealing interactions between the organisms that reside in the gut and those that live in tumours themselves, potentially opening up new targets for treatment.
Body clock off-schedule? Prebiotics may help: Dietary compounds shown to protect against jet lag-type symptoms -- ScienceDaily
Naturally abundant in many fibrous foods -- including leeks, artichokes and onions -- and in breast milk, these indigestible carbohydrates pass through the small intestine and linger in the gut, serving as nourishment for the trillions of bacteria residing there.
The authors' previous studies showed that rats raised on prebiotic-infused chow slept better and were more resilient to some of the physical effects of acute stress.
For the new study, part of a multi-university project funded by the Office of Naval Research, the researchers sought to learn if prebiotics could also promote resilience to body-clock disruptions from things like jet lag, irregular work schedules or lack of natural daytime light -- a reality many military personnel live with.
"They are traveling all over the world and frequently changing time zones. For submariners, who can be underwater for months, circadian disruption can be a real challenge," said lead author Robert Thompson, a postdoctoral researcher in the Fleshner lab. "The goal of this project is to find ways to mitigate those effects."
Fasting lowers blood pressure by reshaping the gut microbiota -- ScienceDaily
Working with the SHRSP model of spontaneous hypertension and normal rats, the researchers set up two groups. One group had SHRSP and normal rats that were fed every other day, while the other group, called control, had SHRSP and normal rats with unrestricted food availability.
Nine weeks after the experiment began, the researchers observed that, as expected, the rats in the SHRSP control had higher blood pressure when compared to the normal control rats. Interestingly, in the group that fasted every other day, the SHRSP rats had significantly reduced blood pressure when compared with the SHRSP rats that had not fasted.
Of apples and oil pumpkins: News from microbiome research -- ScienceDaily
An international team was able to show that the nature and structure of the fungal and bacterial communities of the apple at the time of harvest vary from region to region, i.e. they are strongly dependent on the geographical location and thus on the prevailing climatic conditions and management practices. In particular, the fungal diversity of the fruit is significantly dependent on the locality and suggests a relationship to the type and frequency of post-harvest diseases. On the other hand, a continental pattern can be drawn especially for the bacterial community which indicates adaptation of the apple microbiome to local environments.
The gut mycobiome influences the metabolism of processed foods -- ScienceDaily
Willis and colleagues looked at fungi in the jejunum of the mouse small intestine, site of the most diverse fungal population in the mouse gut. They found that exposure to a processed diet, which is representative of a typical Western diet rich in purified carbohydrates, led to persistent differences in fungal communities that significantly associated with differential deposition of body mass in male mice, as compared to mice fed a standardized diet.
Gut microbiome implicated in healthy aging and longevity: Data from over 9,000 people reveal a distinct gut microbiome signature that is associated with healthy aging and survival in the latest decades of life -- ScienceDaily
The data showed that gut microbiomes became increasingly unique (i.e. increasingly divergent from others) as individuals aged, starting in mid-to-late adulthood, which corresponded with a steady decline in the abundance of core bacterial genera (e.g. Bacteroides) that tend to be shared across humans.
Strikingly, while microbiomes became increasingly unique to each individual in healthy aging, the metabolic functions the microbiomes were carrying out shared common traits. This gut uniqueness signature was highly correlated with several microbially-derived metabolites in blood plasma, including one -- tryptophan-derived indole -- that has previously been shown to extend lifespan in mice. Blood levels of another metabolite -- phenylacetylglutamine -- showed the strongest association with uniqueness, and prior work has shown that this metabolite is indeed highly elevated in the blood of centenarians.
"This uniqueness signature can predict patient survival in the latest decades of life," said ISB Research Scientist Dr. Tomasz Wilmanski, who led the study. Healthy individuals around 80 years of age showed continued microbial drift toward a unique compositional state, but this drift was absent in less healthy individuals.
"Interestingly, this uniqueness pattern appears to start in mid-life -- 40-50 years old -- and is associated with a clear blood metabolomic signature, suggesting that these microbiome changes may not simply be diagnostic of healthy aging, but that they may also contribute directly to health as we age," Wilmanski said. For example, indoles are known to reduce inflammation in the gut, and chronic inflammation is thought to be a major driver in the progression of aging-related morbidities.
Landscapes of bacterial and metabolic signatures and their interaction in major depressive disorders | Science Advances
Gut microbiome disturbances have been implicated in major depressive disorder (MDD). However, little is known about how the gut virome, microbiome, and fecal metabolome change, and how they interact in MDD. Here, using whole-genome shotgun metagenomic and untargeted metabolomic methods, we identified 3 bacteriophages, 47 bacterial species, and 50 fecal metabolites showing notable differences in abundance between MDD patients and healthy controls (HCs). Patients with MDD were mainly characterized by increased abundance of the genus Bacteroides and decreased abundance of the genera Blautia and Eubacterium. These multilevel omics alterations generated a characteristic MDD coexpression network. Disturbed microbial genes and fecal metabolites were consistently mapped to amino acid (γ-aminobutyrate, phenylalanine, and tryptophan) metabolism. Furthermore, we identified a combinatorial marker panel that robustly discriminated MDD from HC individuals in both the discovery and validation sets. Our findings provide a deep insight into understanding of the roles of disturbed gut ecosystem in MDD.
Discoveries reshape understanding of gut microbiome -- ScienceDaily
In the study, the researchers found that the fecal matter of mice treated with a broad-spectrum antibiotic had no trace of the mucus coating. And when mice without this protective barrier received a transplant of fecal matter with microbiome, their mucus production jump-started.
This may have significant treatment implications for patients whose microbiome is out of balance, Xia explained.
"Whether because of antibiotics interrupting mucus production or a total colon removal due to ulcerative colitis, painful inflammation can result," said Xia. "Now that we better understand the role and origin of this mucus, we will study how we can supplement it or restore its production."
Oxygen therapy harms lung microbiome in mice: Study could have implications for treatment of reduced oxygen levels in critically ill patients -- ScienceDaily
"When we gave high concentrations of oxygen to healthy mice, their lung communities changed quickly, and just like we predicted," said Ashley. "The oxygen-intolerant bacteria went down, and the oxygen-tolerant bacteria went up." After three days of oxygen therapy, oxygen-tolerant Staphylococcus was by far the most commonly detected bacteria in mouse lungs.
The team next designed experiments to answer a key "chicken or the egg" question: do these altered bacterial communities contribute to lung injury? Or are bacterial communities altered because the lung is injured? They first addressed this by comparing the relative timing of changes in lung bacteria as compared to the onset of lung injury.
Using mice, they were able to demonstrate that while the lung microbiome was changed by high oxygen concentrations after only a day, lung injury wasn't detectable until after 3 days, proving that damage to the lung followed the disruption of the microbiome, and not the other way around. Furthermore, they showed that natural variation in lung bacteria was strongly correlated with variation in the severity of inflammation in oxygen-exposed mice.
Unparalleled inventory of the human gut ecosystem -- ScienceDaily
"Last year, three independent teams, including ours, reconstructed thousands of gut microbiome genomes. The big questions were whether these teams had comparable results, and whether we could pool them into a comprehensive inventory," says Rob Finn, Team Leader at EMBL-EBI.
The scientists have now compiled 200,000 genomes and 170 million protein sequences from more than 4 600 bacterial species in the human gut. Their new databases, the Unified Human Gastrointestinal Genome collection and the Unified Gastrointestinal Protein catalogue, reveal the tremendous diversity in our guts and pave the way for further microbiome research.
"This immense catalogue is a landmark in microbiome research, and will be an invaluable resource for scientists to start studying and hopefully understanding the role of each bacterial species in the human gut ecosystem," explains Nicola Segata, Principal Investigator at the University of Trento.
The project revealed that more than 70% of the detected bacterial species had never been cultured in the lab -- their activity in the body remains unknown. The largest group of bacteria that falls into that category is the Comantemales, an order of gut bacteria first described in 2019 in a study led by the Bork Group at EMBL Heidelberg.
"It was a real surprise to see how widespread the Comantemales are. This highlights how little we know about the bacteria in our gut," explains Alexandre Almeida, EMBL-EBI/Sanger Postdoctoral Fellow in the Finn Team. "We hope our catalogue will help bioinformaticians and microbiologists bridge that knowledge gap in the coming years."
A freely accessible data resource
All the data collected in the Unified Human Gastrointestinal Genome collection and the Unified Human Gastrointestinal Protein catalogue are freely available in MGnify, an EMBL-EBI online resource that allows scientists to analyse their microbial genomic data and make comparisons with existing datasets.
Microbes might manage your cholesterol: Researchers discover mysterious bacteria that break down cholesterol in the gut -- ScienceDaily
Then Kenny narrowed their search further. In the lab, he inserted each potential gene into bacteria and tested which made enzymes to break down cholesterol into coprostanol. Eventually, he found the best candidate, which the team named the Intestinal Steroid Metabolism A (IsmA) gene.
"We could now correlate the presence or absence of potential bacteria that have these enzymes with blood cholesterol levels collected from the same individuals," said Xavier. Using human microbiome data sets from China, Netherlands and the United States, they discovered that people who carry the IsmA gene in their microbiome had 55 to 75 percent less cholesterol in their stool than those without.
"Those who have this enzyme activity basically have lower cholesterol," Xavier said.
Your microbiome may change how drugs affect you, research confirms
For the Cell study, the researchers grew the microbes from a patient’s fecal matter in test tubes. They added one of 575 drugs in separate tubes and waited to see if the microbiome had an effect — and in particular, whether it rendered the drug inactive or even changed it into a more toxic substance, which could trigger side effects in a patient.
The gut microbes broke down capecitabine very differently from the way it is processed by the liver, for example. While scientists had already observed that capecitabine often affects patients differently, how and if it was broken down by the microbiome was unknown before this study, and the new findings could shed light on those variations.
The authors used 20 more patient fecal samples to test differences between how individual patients’ gut microbes break down the same drug, examining 23 drugs from the first experiment. There were huge differences between patients — some drugs were only broken down by one patient. Only three patients broke down digoxin, a drug used to treat arrhythmia, for example — suggesting that the other patients might not see the same benefit or side effects from the drug.
Viruses from feces can help combat obesity and diabetes -- ScienceDaily
In recent years, faecal transplants from healthy donors to sick patients have become a popular way of treating a serious type of diarrhea caused by the bacterium Clostridioides difficile in humans. Recent trials in mice suggest that a similar treatment, in which only the virus in stool is transplanted, may help people suffering from obesity and type 2 diabetes. The majority of virus particles transmitted are so-called bacteriophages -- viruses that specifically attack other bacteria and not humans.
"When we transmit virus particles from the faeces of lean mice to obese ones, the obese mice put on significantly less weight compared to those that do not receive transplanted faeces," says Professor with Special Responsibilities (MSO) and senior author of the study, Dennis Sandris Nielsen of the University of Copenhagen's Department of Food Science.
Gut communicates with the entire brain through cross-talking neurons -- ScienceDaily
"We saw a lot of connections in the brainstem and hindbrain regions. We knew these regions are involved in sensing and controlling the organs of the body, so there weren't any big surprises there. But things got more interesting as the viruses moved farther up into parts of the brain that are usually considered emotional centers or learning centers, cognitive places. They have all these multifaceted functions. So thinking about how information from the small intestine might be nudging those processes a little bit is really cool," says Coltan Parker, doctoral student in the Neuroscience Program at Illinois and lead author on a study published in Autonomic Neuroscience: Basic and Clinical.
Diet, nutrition have profound effects on gut microbiome -- ScienceDaily
The authors found that research has mostly focused on the benefits of dietary fiber, which serves as fuel for gut microbiota, and also found that, in contrast, protein promotes microbial protein metabolism and potentially harmful byproducts that may sit in the gut, increasing the risk of negative health outcomes.
More than just a carnival trick: Researchers can guess your age based on your microbes -- ScienceDaily
Given a microbiome sample (skin, mouth or fecal swab), researchers have demonstrated they can now use machine learning to predict a person's chronological age, with a varying degree of accuracy. Skin samples provided the most accurate prediction, estimating correctly to within approximately 3.8 years, compared to 4.5 years with an oral sample and 11.5 years with a fecal sample. The types of microbes living in the oral cavity or within the gut of young people (age 18 to 30 years old) tended to be more diverse and abundant than in comparative microbiomes of older adults (age 60 years and older).[…]
How Mucus Tames Microbes – NIH Director's Blog
The researchers found that in the presence of glycans, P. aeruginosa was rendered less harmful and infectious. The bacteria also produced fewer toxins. The findings show that it isn’t just that microbes get trapped in a tangled web within mucus, but rather that glycans have a special ability to moderate the bugs’ behavior. The researchers also have evidence of similar interactions between mucus and other microorganisms, such as those responsible for yeast infections.
Fatty meal interrupts gut's communication with the body, but why? If that second helping of prime rib stuns your gut into silence, is that good or bad? -- ScienceDaily
These cells produce at least 15 different hormones to send signals to the rest of the body about gut movement, feelings of fullness, digestion, nutrient absorption, insulin sensitivity and energy storage.
"But they fall asleep on the job for a few hours after a high-fat meal, and we don't yet know if that's good or bad," said John Rawls, an associate professor of molecular genetics and microbiology in the Duke School of Medicine.
Since enteroendocrine cells are key players in digestion, the feeling of being full and subsequent feeding behavior, this silencing may be a mechanism that somehow causes people eating a high-fat diet to eat even more.
"This is a previously unappreciated part of the postprandial (after-meal) cycle," Rawls said. "If this happens every time we eat an unhealthy, high-fat meal, it might cause a change in insulin signaling, which could in turn contribute to the development of insulin resistance and Type 2 diabetes."
Asthma severity linked to microbiome of upper airway - ScienceBlog.com
The researchers found that children who experienced early warning signs that their asthma was going to flare up were more likely to have bacteria associated with disease — including Staphylococcus, Streptococcus and Moraxella bacterial groups — living in their upper airways. In contrast, airway microbes dominated by Corynebacterium and Dolosigranulum bacteria were associated with periods of good health, when asthma was well-controlled.
Teams of Microbes Are at Work in Our Bodies. Researchers Have Figured Out What They’re up to. - ScienceBlog.com
“We call this method ‘themetagenomics,’ because we are looking for recurring themes in microbiomes that are indicators of co-occurring groups of microbes,” Rosen said. “There are thousands of species of microbes living in the body, so if you think about all the permutations of groupings that could exist you can imagine what a daunting task it is to determine which of them are living in community with each other. Our method puts a pattern-spotting algorithm to work on the task, which saves a tremendous amount of time and eliminates some guesswork.”
Association of Dietary Fiber and Yogurt Consumption With Lung Cancer Risk: A Pooled Analysis | Lifestyle Behaviors | JAMA Oncology | JAMA Network
The analytic sample included 627 988 men, with a mean (SD) age of 57.9 (9.0) years, and 817 862 women, with a mean (SD) age of 54.8 (9.7) years. During a median follow-up of 8.6 years, 18 822 incident lung cancer cases were documented. Both fiber and yogurt intakes were inversely associated with lung cancer risk after adjustment for status and pack-years of smoking and other lung cancer risk factors: hazard ratio, 0.83 (95% CI, 0.76-0.91) for the highest vs lowest quintile of fiber intake; and hazard ratio, 0.81 (95% CI, 0.76-0.87) for high vs no yogurt consumption. The fiber or yogurt associations with lung cancer were significant in never smokers and were consistently observed across sex, race/ethnicity, and tumor histologic type. When considered jointly, high yogurt consumption with the highest quintile of fiber intake showed more than 30% reduced risk of lung cancer than nonyogurt consumption with the lowest quintile of fiber intake (hazard ratio, 0.67 [95% CI, 0.61-0.73] in total study populations; hazard ratio 0.69 [95% CI, 0.54-0.89] in never smokers), suggesting potential synergism.
Transient and long-term disruption of gut microbes after antibiotics - ScienceBlog.com
In contrast, the triple-antibiotics individuals showed a significant increase of new strains that persisted as long as six months after treatment, as compared to the single antibiotic and the control individuals. Furthermore, the fraction of transient strains was also significantly higher in the multiple antibiotics individuals. This suggested a long-term change to an alternative stable microbiome state, Morrow says. These changes were not due to a difference in growth rates.
“Given the importance of the microbiome in human health, we think our results with these data sets can be used to help evaluate microbiome stability under different conditions,” Morrow said. “For example, we can now provide guidance to clinical investigators to judge the impact of certain treatments for diseases, such as cancer or diabetes, on the gut microbial community that could be significant for evaluation of outcomes. Furthermore, this approach could be applied to a patient’s pre- and post-hospitalization to identify individuals who may need further management of their microbiomes.”
A reliable clock for your microbiome: Genetic oscillator records changes in microbiome growth patterns in vivo -- ScienceDaily
The system uses an oscillating gene circuit, called a repressilator, as a kind of genetic clock to measure bacterial growth. The repressilator consists of three bacterial genes that code for three proteins (tetR, cl, and lacI), each of which blocks the expression of one of the other proteins. The genes are linked into a negative feedback loop, so that when the concentration of one of the repressor proteins falls below a certain level, the protein it had been repressing is expressed, which blocks the expression of the third protein, and the process repeats in a cyclical fashion.
When all three genes are inserted into a plasmid and introduced into bacteria, the number of negative feedback loop cycles completed can serve as a record of how many cell divisions the bacteria have undergone. Every time the bacteria divide, any repressor proteins present in their cytoplasm are diluted, so their concentration gradually falls and triggers the expression of the next protein in the repressilator cycle. Crucially, the repressilator cycle repeats after 15.5 bacterial generations regardless of how quickly or slowly the bacteria are growing. This allows it to act as an objective measurement of time, much like a clock or a watch.
Gut bacteria 'fingerprint' predicts radiotherapy side effects: First clinical study to show link between types of gut bacteria and radiotherapy-induced gut damage -- ScienceDaily
The researchers found that patients who had a high risk of gut damage had 30-50 per cent higher levels of three bacteria types, and lower overall diversity in their gut microbiome, than patients who had not undergone any radiotherapy.
This suggests that patients with less diverse gut microbiomes and high levels of the bacteria -- Clostridium IV, Roseburia and Phascolarctobacterium -- are more susceptible to gut damage.
The researchers also believe these patients may require more 'good bacteria' to maintain a healthy gut -- and so may be more susceptible to side effects when these bacteria are killed by radiation.
Molecule links weight gain to gut bacteria -- ScienceDaily
The study also found that microbes program these so-called circadian rhythms by activating a protein named histone deacetylase 3 (HDAC3), which is made by cells that line the gut. Those cells act as intermediaries between bacteria that aid in digestion of food and proteins that enable absorption of nutrients.
The study, done in mice, revealed that HDAC3 turns on genes involved in the absorption of fat. They found that HDAC3 interacts with the biological clock machinery within the gut to refine the rhythmic ebb and flow of proteins that enhance absorption of fat. This regulation occurs in the daytime in humans, who eat during the day, and at night in mice, which eat at night.
"The microbiome actually communicates with our metabolic machinery to make fat absorption more efficient. But when fat is overabundant, this communication can result in obesity. Whether the same thing is going on in other mammals, including humans, is the subject of future studies," added lead author Dr. Zheng Kuang, a postdoctoral fellow in the Hooper laboratory.
