Obesity is a risk factor for osteoarthritis (OA), the greatest cause of disability in the US. The impact of obesity on OA is driven by systemic in ammation, and increased systemic in ammation is now understood to be caused by gut microbiome dysbiosis. Oligofructose, a nondigestible prebiotic ber, can restore a lean gut microbial community pro le in the context of obesity, suggesting a potentially novel approach to treat the OA of obesity. Here, we report that — compared with the lean murine gut — obesity is associated with loss of bene cial Bi dobacteria, while key proin ammatory species gain in abundance. A downstream systemic in ammatory signature culminates with macrophage migration to the synovium and accelerated knee OA. Oligofructose supplementation restores the lean gut microbiome in obese mice, in part, by supporting key commensal micro ora, particularly Bi dobacterium pseudolongum. This is associated with reduced in ammation in the colon, circulation, and knee and protection from OA. This observation of a gut microbiome–OA connection sets the stage for discovery of potentially new OA therapeutics involving strategic manipulation of speci c microbial species inhabiting the intestinal space.
Category Archives: microbiome
How Holobionts get Sick
Interesting article that continues the discussion of redeveloping our medical diagnostic and treatment paradigm to include dysbiosis. Technologies such a multiplexing assays give us the ability to quickly gauge the absence or presence of certain complexes that create an environment for disease. Additionally, the introduction of new vocabulary is essential to further discussions and analysis outside of the traditional medical paradigms.
Microbiota Transfer Therapy improves gastrointestinal and autism symptoms
Microbiota Transfer Therapy alters gut ecosystem and improves gastrointestinal and autism symptoms: an open-label study
New research suggests a link between the microbiome and autism spectrum disorder. Using a protocol that involved a fecal microbiota transplant (FMT) resulted in an improvement in both gastrointestinal symptoms but also behavioral improvements. This small study is important as it reproduces the results of other adult studies that have shown an improvement in psychological symptoms following FMT. It provides yet more evidence of a gut-brain connection and should encourage others to explore this important connection.
The Breast Has Its Own Microbiome
The Breast Has Its Own Microbiome–and the Mix of Bacteria Could Prevent or Encourage Cancer
If certain bacteria do instigate cancer, the finding could lead to new screening methods or treatments
The gut microbiome has stolen the show when it comes to the recent explosion of research on the bacteria that thrive within us. But bacteria also live in a woman’s breast tissue—and the mix of those microbes may have an equally important effect on health, according to a new study in Applied and Environmental Microbiology. The results “suggest that microbes in the breast, even in low amounts, may be playing a role in breast cancer—increasing the risk in some cases and decreasing the risk in other cases,” says Gregor Reid, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Western University in Ontario and the study’s senior author.
One in eight women in the U.S. are diagnosed with breast cancer during their lifetimes, but its origins remain unknown in most cases. Age, genetic predisposition and environmental changes are often implicated—and according to a growing body of research, bacteria may be one of those environmental factors. For instance, as early as the 1960s a number of studies have found that breast-feeding is associated with a lower risk of breast cancer, and more recent work suggests that this may be because breast milk supports the growth of beneficial microorganisms.
Link to full article –
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-breast-has-its-own-microbiome-and-the-mix-of-bacteria-could-prevent-or-encourage-cancer/#
Can Bacteria Make Your Skin Healthier?
Cosmetics companies claim that tweaking the bacteria on the skin can make it healthier. But does the science stack up?
Antibacterial cosmetics are so last year; the latest craze is for face creams, serums, and washes that actually add bacteria to the skin in order to make it look younger and healthier. But experts think that these products aren’t backed up by enough science to work as their manufacturers claim.
Because they can cause disease and infection, we often think of bacteria as the enemy. But in fact, they are essential to the body’s regular function—colonies of bacteria called the microbiome live in places like the intestines, mouth, vagina, and nose, outnumbering the body’s own cells. Every person’s microbiome is unique, influenced by factors like diet, age, gender, hometown, and family.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/08/18/can-bacteria-make-your-skin-healthier.html
Microbes of the Skin
Human skin, the barrier between the body and the outside world, is home to diverse microorganisms, some of which can promote immunity or fight invaders.
| June 13, 2014
The microbial communities that inhabit the skin, perhaps the most diverse of the human body, are suspected to be key players in host defense. New evidence suggests that commensal skin bacteria both directly protect humans from pathogenic invaders and help the immune system maintain that delicate balance between effective protection and damaging inflammation. While causal links between the skin’s commensal microbes and health or disease remain to be demonstrated, the clues that have accumulated in the last few years paint a suggestive picture.
“None of us in the field—and this is true for the gut, this is true for the skin—none of us can actually tell how our experimental observations really relate to human disease, but we’re getting, all of us, closer to mechanistic insights,” said immunologist Yasmine Belkaid, chief of mucosal immunology at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID).
See full article at this link –
http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/40228/title/Microbes-of-the-Skin/
Gut microbiota imbalance and colorectal cancer
Abstract
The gut microbiota acts as a real organ. The symbiotic interactions between resident micro-organisms and the digestive tract highly contribute to maintain the gut homeostasis….(continued below in the window)
Human milk microbiota profiles in relation to birthing method, gestation and infant gender
Gut Microbiota from Twins Discordant for Obesity Modulate Metabolism in Mice
Gut Microbiota from Twins Discordant for Obesity Modulate Metabolism in Mice
Introduction
Establishing whether specific structural and functional configurations of a human gut microbiota are causally related to a given physiologic or disease phenotype is challenging. Twins discordant for obesity provide an opportunity to examine interrelations between obesity and its associated metabolic disorders, diet, and the gut microbiota. Transplanting the intact uncultured or cultured human fecal microbiota from each member of a discordant twin pair into separate groups of recipient germfree mice permits the donors’ communities to be replicated, differences between their properties to be identified, the impact of these differences on body composition and metabolic phenotypes to be discerned, and the effects of diet-by-microbiota interactions to be analyzed. In addition, cohousing coprophagic mice harboring transplanted microbiota from discordant pairs provides an opportunity to determine which bacterial taxa invade the gut communities of cage mates, how invasion correlates with host phenotypes, and how invasion and microbial niche are affected by human diets.
Methods
Separate groups of germfree mice were colonized with uncultured fecal microbiota from each member of four twin pairs discordant for obesity or with culture collections from an obese (Ob) or lean (Ln) co-twin. Animals were fed a mouse chow low in fat and rich in plant polysaccharides, or one of two diets reflecting the upper or lower tertiles of consumption of saturated fats and fruits and vegetables based on the U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). Ln or Ob mice were cohoused 5 days after colonization. Body composition changes were defined by quantitative magnetic resonance. Microbiota or microbiome structure, gene expression, and metabolism were assayed by 16S ribosomal RNA profiling, whole-community shotgun sequencing, RNA-sequencing, and mass spectrometry. Host gene expression and metabolism were also characterized.
Results and Discussion
The intact uncultured and culturable bacterial component of Ob co-twins’ fecal microbiota conveyed significantly greater increases in body mass and adiposity than those of Ln communities. Differences in body composition were correlated with differences in fermentation of short-chain fatty acids (increased in Ln), metabolism of branched-chain amino acids (increased in Ob), and microbial transformation of bile acid species (increased in Ln and correlated with down-regulation of host farnesoid X receptor signaling). Cohousing Ln and Ob mice prevented development of increased adiposity and body mass in Ob cage mates and transformed their microbiota’s metabolic profile to a leanlike state. Transformation correlated with invasion of members of Bacteroidales from Ln into Ob microbiota. Invasion and phenotypic rescue were diet-dependent and occurred with the diet representing the lower tertile of U.S. consumption of saturated fats, and upper tertile of fruits and vegetables, but not with the diet representing the upper tertile of saturated fats, and lower tertile of fruit and vegetable consumption. These results reveal that transmissible and modifiable interactions between diet and microbiota influence host biology.
Science 6 September 2013:
Vol. 341 no. 6150
DOI: 10.1126/science.1241214
The vocabulary of microbiome research: a proposal
The advancement of DNA/RNA, proteins, and metabolite analytical platforms, combined with increased computing technologies, has transformed the field of microbial community analysis. This transformation is evident by the exponential increase in the number of publications describing the composition and structure, and sometimes function, of the microbial communities inhabiting the human body. This rapid evolution of the field has been accompanied by confusion in the vocabulary used to describe different aspects of these communities and their environments. The misuse of terms such as microbiome, microbiota, metabolomic, and metagenome and metagenomics among others has contributed to misunderstanding of many study results by the scientific community and the general public alike. A few review articles have previously defined those terms, but mainly as sidebars, and no clear definitions or use cases have been published. In this editorial, we aim to propose clear definitions of each of these terms, which we would implore scientists in the field to adopt and perfect.