Project description:Background - Prepregnancy overweight and obesity promote deleterious health impacts on both mothers during pregnancy and the offspring. Significant changes in the maternal peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) gene expression due to obesity are well-known. However, during pregnancy the impact of overweight on immune cell gene expression and its association with maternal and infant outcomes is not well explored. Methods – Blood samples were collected from healthy normal weight (NW, BMI 18.5-24.9) or overweight (OW, BMI 25-29.9) 2nd parity pregnant women at 12, 24 and 36 weeks of pregnancy. PBMCs were isolated from the blood and subjected to mRNA sequencing. Maternal and infant microbiota were analyzed by 16S rRNA gene sequencing. Integrative multi-omics data analysis was performed to evaluate the association of gene expression with maternal diet, gut microbiota, milk composition, and infant gut microbiota. Results - Gene expression analysis revealed that 453 genes were differentially expressed in the OW women compared to NW women at 12 weeks of pregnancy, out of which 354 were upregulated and 99 were downregulated. Several up-regulated genes in the OW group were enriched in inflammatory, chemokine-mediated signaling and regulation of interleukin-8 production-related pathways. At 36 weeks of pregnancy healthy eating index score was positively associated with several genes that include, DTD1, ELOC, GALNT8, ITGA6-AS1, KRT17P2, NPW, POT1-AS1 and RPL26. In addition, at 36 weeks of pregnancy, genes involved in adipocyte functions, such as NG2 and SMTNL1, were negatively correlated to human milk 2’FL and total fucosylated oligosaccharides content collected at 1 month postnatally. Furthermore, infant Akkermansia was positively associated with maternal PBMC anti-inflammatory genes that include CPS1 and RAB7B, at 12 and 36 weeks of pregnancy. Conclusions – These findings suggest that prepregnancy overweight impacts the immune cell gene expression profile, particularly at 12 weeks of pregnancy. Further, deciphering the complex association of PBMC’s gene expression levels with maternal gut microbiome and milk composition and infant gut microbiome may aid in developing strategies to mitigate obesity-mediated effects.
Project description:Chronic diseases arise when pathophysiological processes achieve a steady state by self-reinforcing. Here, we explored the possibility of a self-reinforcement state in a common condition, chronic constipation, where alterations of the gut microbiota have been reported. The functional impact of the microbiota shifts on host physiology remains unclear, however we hypothesized that microbial communities adapted to slow gastrointestinal transit affect host functions in a way that reinforces altered transit, thereby maintaining the advantage for microbial self-selection. To test this, we examined the impact of pharmacologically (loperamide)-induced constipation (PIC) on the structural and functional profile of altered gut microbiota. PIC promoted changes in the gut microbiome, characterized by decreased representation of butyrate-producing Clostridiales, decreased cecal butyrate concentration and altered metabolic profiles of gut microbiota. PIC-associated gut microbiota also impacted colonic gene expression, suggesting this might be a basis for decreased gastrointestinal (GI) motor function. Introduction of PIC-associated cecal microbiota into germ-free (GF) mice significantly decreased GI transit time. Our findings therefore support the concept that chronic diseases like constipation are caused by disease-associated steady states, in this case, caused by reciprocating reinforcement of pathophysiological factors in host-microbe interactions. We used microarrays to detail the global gene expression profile in the proximal colon smooth muscle tissues of germ-free, conventionalized, or specific pathogen free mouse C57Bl/6 female and male specific pathogen free (SPF) mice were bred and housed in the animal care facility at the University of Chicago. Mice of 8–10 weeks of age were treated with 0.1% loperamide in the drinking water for 7 days. Age matched, germ-free (GF) C57Bl/6 mice were gavaged orally with cecal luminal contents harvested from control or loperamide-treated C57Bl/6 donor mice. Recipient mice were sacrificed 4 weeks post-colonization.
Project description:Gut microbiota has profound effects on obesity and associated metabolic disorders. Targeting and shaping the gut microbiota via dietary intervention using probiotics, prebiotics and synbiotics can be effective in obesity management. Despite the well-known association between gut microbiota and obesity, the microbial alternations by synbiotics intervention, especially at the functional level, are still not characterized. In this study, we investigated the effects of synbiotics on high fat diet (HFD)-induced metabolic disorders, and systematically profiled the microbial profile at both the phylogenetic and functional levels. Synbiotics significantly reversed the HFD-induced change of microbial populations at the levels of richness, taxa and OTUs. Potentially important species Faecalibaculum rodentium and Alistipes putredinis that might mediate the beneficial effects of synbiotics were identified. At the functional level, short chain fatty acid and bile acid profiles revealed that interventions significantly restored cecal levels of acetate, propionate, and butyrate, and synbiotics reduced the elevated total bile acid level. Metaproteomics revealed the effect of synbiotics might be mediated through pathways involved in carbohydrate, amino acid, and energy metabolisms, replication and repair, etc. These results suggested that dietary intervention using our novel synbiotics alleviated HFD-induced weight gain and restored microbial ecosystem homeostasis phylogenetically and functionally.
Project description:Chronic diseases arise when pathophysiological processes achieve a steady state by self-reinforcing. Here, we explored the possibility of a self-reinforcement state in a common condition, chronic constipation, where alterations of the gut microbiota have been reported. The functional impact of the microbiota shifts on host physiology remains unclear, however we hypothesized that microbial communities adapted to slow gastrointestinal transit affect host functions in a way that reinforces altered transit, thereby maintaining the advantage for microbial self-selection. To test this, we examined the impact of pharmacologically (loperamide)-induced constipation (PIC) on the structural and functional profile of altered gut microbiota. PIC promoted changes in the gut microbiome, characterized by decreased representation of butyrate-producing Clostridiales, decreased cecal butyrate concentration and altered metabolic profiles of gut microbiota. PIC-associated gut microbiota also impacted colonic gene expression, suggesting this might be a basis for decreased gastrointestinal (GI) motor function. Introduction of PIC-associated cecal microbiota into germ-free (GF) mice significantly decreased GI transit time. Our findings therefore support the concept that chronic diseases like constipation are caused by disease-associated steady states, in this case, caused by reciprocating reinforcement of pathophysiological factors in host-microbe interactions. We used microarrays to detail the global gene expression profile in the proximal colon smooth muscle tissues of germ-free, conventionalized, or specific pathogen free mouse
Project description:This study demonstrates the usefulness of the API by generating a baseline gut microbiota profile of a healthy population and estimating reference intervals for the functional abundance of manually selected KEGG pathways. API facilitates microbiome research by providing dynamic and customizable tools for estimating reference intervals for gut microbiota functional abundances. Through the API, researchers can rapidly generate gut microbiota functional profiles of healthy populations to use as a baseline for comparison. The API also allows users to manually select specific KEGG pathways and estimate reference intervals for the functional abundance of those pathways. By generating these customized reference intervals, researchers can better understand the expected range of gut microbiota functions in healthy individuals. API enables microbiome studies to go beyond simple taxonomic profiling and delve deeper into the functional potential of gut microbiome communities. In summary, API represents a valuable tool for microbiome researchers that enhances the ability to elucidate connections between gut microbial functions and human health.
Project description:In vitro gut microbiota models are often used to study drug-microbiome interaction. Similar to culturing individual microbial strains, the biomass accumulation of in vitro gut microbiota follows a logistic growth curve. Current studies on in vitro gut microbiome responses introduce drug stimulation during different growth stages, e.g. lag phase or stationary phase. However, in vitro gut microbiota in different growth phases may respond differently to a same stimuli. Therefore, in this study, we used a 96-deep well plate-based culturing model (MiPro) to culture the human gut microbiota. Metformin, as the stimulus, was added at the lag, log and stationary phases of growth. Microbiome samples were collected at different time points for optical density and metaproteomic functional analysis. Results show that in vitro gut microbiota responded differently to metformin added during different growth phases, in terms of the growth curve, alterations of taxonomic and functional compositions. The addition of drugs at log phase leads to the greatest decline of bacterial growth. Metaproteomic analysis suggested that the strength of the metformin effect on the gut microbiome functional profile was ranked as lag phase > log phase > stationary phase. Our results showed that metformin added at lag phase resulted in a significantly reduced abundance of the Clostridiales order as well as an increased abundance of the Bacteroides genus, which was different from stimulation during the rest of the growth phase. Metformin also resulted in alterations of several pathways, including energy production and conversion, lipid transport and metabolism, translation, ribosomal structure and biogenesis. Our results indicate that the timing for drug stimulation should be considered when studying drug-microbiome interactions in vitro.
Project description:Distal gut bacteria play a pivotal role in the digestion of dietary polysaccharides by producing a large number of carbohydrate-active enzymes (CAZymes) that the host otherwise does not produce. We report here the design of a high density custom microarray that we used to spot non-redundant DNA probes for more than 6,500 genes encoding glycoside hydrolases and lyases selected from 174 reference genomes from distal gut bacteria. The custom microarray was tested and validated by the hybridization of bacterial DNA extracted from the stool samples of lean, obese and anorexic individuals. Our results suggest that a microarray-based study can detect genes from low-abundance bacteria better than metagenomic-based studies. A striking example was the finding that a gene encoding a GH6-family cellulase was present in all subjects examined, whereas metagenomic studies have consistently failed to detect this gene in both human and animal gut microbiomes. In addition, an examination of eight stool samples allowed the identification of a corresponding CAZome core containing 46 families of glycoside hydrolases and polysaccharide lyases, which suggests the functional stability of the gut microbiota despite large taxonomical variations between individuals. Fecal samples were collected from eight female subjects. Three were obese subjects of BMI kg m-2: 35, 46.8 and 51.3, respectively; age: 42, 21 and 65 years old, respectively. Three were anorexic women of BMI kg m-2: 9.8, 10 and 13.7, respectively; age: 19, 23 and 49 years old, respectively. Finally, two fecal samples from lean women of BMI kg m-2: 18.6 and 23.42 were analyzed.
Project description:Parkinson's disease (PD) is a common neurodegenerative disease in middle-aged and elderly people. The disorder of gut microbiota is involved in the pathophysiological process of various neurological diseases, and many studies have confirmed that gut microbiota is involved in the progression of PD. As one of the most effective methods to reconstruct gut microbiota, fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) has been considered as an important treatment for PD. However, the mechanism of FMT treatment for PD is still lacking, which requires further exploration and can facilitate the application of FMT. As a model organism, Drosophila is highly conserved with mammalian system in maintaining intestinal homeostasis. In this study, there were significant differences in the gut microbiota of conventional Drosophila colonized from PD patients compared to those transplanted from normal controls. And we constructed rotenone-induced PD model in Drosophila followed by FMT in different groups, and investigated the impact of gut microbiome on transcriptome of the PD host. Microbial analysis by 16S rDNA sequencing showed that gut microbiota could affect bacterial structure of PD, which was confirmed by bacterial colonization results. In addition, transcriptome data suggested that gut microbiota can influence gene expression pattern of PD. Further experimental validations confirmed that lysosome and neuroactive ligand-receptor interaction are the most significantly influenced functional pathways by PD-derived gut microbiota. In summary, our data reveals the influence of PD-derived gut microbiota on host transcriptome and helps better understanding the interaction between gut microbiota and PD through gut-brain axis. The present study will facilitate the understanding of the mechanism underlying PD treatment with FMT in clinical practice.
Project description:Gut dysbiosis is closely involved in the pathogenesis of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). However, it remains unclear whether IBD-associated gut dysbiosis plays a primary role in disease manifestation or is merely secondary to intestinal inflammation. Here, we established a humanized gnotobiotic (hGB) mouse system to assess the functional role of gut dysbiosis associated with two types of IBD - Crohn's disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC). In order to explore the functional impact of dysbiotic microbiota in IBD patients on host immune responses, we analyzed gene expression profiles in colonic mucosa of hGB mice colonized with healty (HC), CD, and UC microbiota.