Some one hundred trillion microorganisms housed in our intestines make up the so-called human microbiome, involved in a host of basic functions, such as digestion and strengthening the immune system. Our health and quality of vine depend on the balance of this ecosystem.
That is why science arises to address diseases of all kinds from the knowledge of our guts. In this sense, scientists from the Wellcome Sanger Institute and the European Institute of Bioinformatics (United Kingdom), and the Hudson Institute for Medical Research (Australia), have just published in Nature Biotechnology the finding of more than one hundred new bacteria present in our microbiome .
These researchers have assembled the most comprehensive collection of human gut bacteria to date, helping their colleagues around the world understand the mechanisms that make our microbiome look after our health and the role bacteria play in disease .
The new resource will allow scientists to detect which bacteria are present in the gut more accurately and quickly than ever. This will also provide the basis for developing new ways to treat various diseases, such as gastrointestinal disorders, infections, and immune system failures .
About 2% of human body weight is due to bacteria, and the gut microbiome is a territory that gathers a significant bacterial population and an essential contributor to human health. Imbalances in the gut microbiome can contribute to complex pathologies and conditions such as inflammatory bowel disease, allergies to irritable bowel syndrome, and obesity .
The problem is that many species of gut bacteria are extremely difficult to grow in the laboratory, so there is a large gap in our knowledge of them. The authors of this research studied fecal samples from 20 individuals from the United Kingdom and Canada, and from them cultured and sequenced the DNA of 737 individual bacterial strains.
Their analysis revealed 273 separate bacterial species, including 173 that had never been previously sequenced. Of these, 105 species had never been isolated.
According to Samuel Forster, from the Wellcome Sanger Institute and the Hudson Medical Research Institute in Australia, and lead author of the paper, “This study has led to the creation of the largest and most comprehensive public database of gut bacteria associated with human health. . The gut microbiome plays an important role in health and disease. This important resource will fundamentally change the way researchers study the microbiome. “
In addition, apart from diseases such as asthma or obesity, intestinal microbes could play a relevant role in the appearance of autism, depression, anxiety and other mental health problems . In the intestine, there are about a hundred million neurons that make up the enteric nervous system.
These nerve cells are in constant and bidirectional communication with the rest of neurons through the gut-brain axis. In fact, gut bacteria regulate levels of serotonin, a neurotransmitter that modulates mood and feelings of well-being.
It is not surprising that the intestinal flora has been postulated as the explanation for certain behaviors. Three years ago, an American team observed that mice on a high-fat diet had behavioral disturbances. The scientists inoculated gut bacteria from rodents that had been fed a high-fat diet to other animals that had followed a normal diet.
And they observed more anxiety, memory problems and repetitive behaviors in the recipient mice, as well as other problems related to inflammation, regardless of whether they were obese or not.
Findings like this have made neuroscience begin to focus on this field and find new clues to understanding the brain in the intestinal flora. It is also about finding new neuroactive substances to treat mental disorders using bacteria. Five years ago these drug candidates were baptized psychobiotics: living organisms that, ingested in adequate quantities, have a benefit in patients with psychiatric illnesses.
For now, more research in humans is needed to understand its effects well and avoid secondary complications of treatment.
