Project description:The human gut is colonized by trillions of microorganisms that influence human health and disease through the metabolism of xenobiotics, including therapeutic drugs and antibiotics. The diversity and metabolic potential of the human gut microbiome have been extensively characterized, but it remains unclear which microorganisms are active and which perturbations can influence this activity. Here, we use flow cytometry, 16S rRNA gene sequencing, and metatranscriptomics to demonstrate that the human gut contains distinctive subsets of active and damaged microorganisms, primarily composed of Firmicutes, which display marked temporal variation. Short-term exposure to a panel of xenobiotics resulted in significant changes in the physiology and gene expression of this active microbiome. Xenobiotic-responsive genes were found across multiple bacterial phyla, encoding novel candidate proteins for antibiotic resistance, drug metabolism, and stress response. These results demonstrate the power of moving beyond DNA-based measurements of microbial communities to better understand their physiology and metabolism. RNA-Seq analysis of the human gut microbiome during exposure to antibiotics and therapeutic drugs.
Project description:The human gut is colonized by trillions of microorganisms that influence human health and disease through the metabolism of xenobiotics, including therapeutic drugs and antibiotics. The diversity and metabolic potential of the human gut microbiome have been extensively characterized, but it remains unclear which microorganisms are active and which perturbations can influence this activity. Here, we use flow cytometry, 16S rRNA gene sequencing, and metatranscriptomics to demonstrate that the human gut contains distinctive subsets of active and damaged microorganisms, primarily composed of Firmicutes, which display marked temporal variation. Short-term exposure to a panel of xenobiotics resulted in significant changes in the physiology and gene expression of this active microbiome. Xenobiotic-responsive genes were found across multiple bacterial phyla, encoding novel candidate proteins for antibiotic resistance, drug metabolism, and stress response. These results demonstrate the power of moving beyond DNA-based measurements of microbial communities to better understand their physiology and metabolism.
Project description:Analysis of breast cancer survivors' gut microbiota after lifestyle intervention, during the COVID-19 lockdown, by 16S sequencing of fecal samples.
Project description:Mitochondria are important organelles controlling productivity and metabolism in cells. Recent studies have found that there are short open reading frames on mitochondrial genomes that has not been discovered before, which could encode short peptides, and we called them mitochondrial-derived peptides (MDPs), including MOTS-c encoded by 12S-rRNA, Humanin(HN) and SHLP1-6 encoded by 16S-rRNA. As a new class of circulating signaling molecules, these mitochondrial-derived peptides play an important function in certain human life activities or the occurrence of diseases. In order to study the potential unknown function of MDP and the molecular mechanism behind it, overexpressing MDPs were used as bait protein to conduct systematic immunoprecipitation experiment.