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A healthy person has a general balance of good and bad bacteria. But that balance is upset when someone gets sick. So, to help increase their levels of good bacteria, many people take probiotic supplements – the living bacteria inside a pill. Various commercial probiotic supplements are available for purchase by consumers, and while health experts generally agree on their overall safety, there is controversy surrounding their effectiveness.
Inside the human body lives a large microscopic community called the microbiome, where billions of bacteria engage in a constant “tug of war” to maintain optimal levels of good and bad bacteria. Most of this struggle takes place in the body’s gastrointestinal tract, as bacteria help digest food and support the immune system. Although health experts believe that good gut health is the key to a person’s health and well-being, scientists continue to develop a detailed picture of what goes on in a person’s digestive tract. .
“Until now, we have had no way of non-invasively monitoring activity in the intact gastrointestinal tract, given the unique chemical environment, variable distribution, and highly dynamic nature of the gut microbiota.” said Elena Goun, associate professor in the Department of Chemistry. at the University of Missouri.
In a new study published in Science Advances, Goun and an international team of scientists have developed a non-invasive diagnostic imaging tool to measure the levels of a natural enzyme – bile salt hydrolase – throughout the gastrointestinal tract from the body. Goun said their tool serves three main functions:
– Predicts the clinical condition of inflammatory bowel diseases, such as Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis.
– Determines the effectiveness of many commercially available probiotic supplements by testing the level of bile salt hydrolase, which is responsible for all of the major health benefits of probiotics.
– Assesses whether certain types of prebiotics – dietary fibers known to support digestive health – can increase bile salt hydrolase levels in the same way as probiotic supplements.
Goun, who specializes in the development of biomedical imaging tools to advance knowledge and understanding of various processes underlying human disease, believes their findings are exciting, particularly with the discovery related to prebiotics, that found naturally in foods such as whole grains, nuts and seeds, fruits and vegetables.
“Prebiotics are often used in combination with probiotics to improve their functions in the body,” Goun said. “We show for the first time that certain types of prebiotics alone are able to increase the activity of bile salts-hydrolase of the gut microbiota, which, among other health benefits, reduces inflammation, reduces the rate of blood cholesterol and protects against colon cancer and urinary tract infections. In my opinion, this finding is huge because the production and storage of prebiotics is cheaper than with probiotics.
Previous reports have noted that the high bile salt hydrolase activity of the gastrointestinal tract reflects better digestive health and a lack of inflammation in the body. Goun said their non-invasive method uses bioluminescence – a chemical reaction that produces light inside a living organism – to measure the level of bile salt-hydrolase activity throughout the gastrointestinal tract.
“Our imaging tool is a bioluminescent probe in the form of a capsule,” Goun said. “When someone swallows it, they are exposed to the intact gut microbiota while traveling through the harsh environment of a person’s entire gastrointestinal tract. Once it comes out of the body, we can analyze a person’s stool sample. We can take the results of this analysis and correlate them with the amount of bile salt hydrolase activity in the human gastrointestinal tract.
Goun believes this research could lead to better precision medicine treatments by providing scientists with a way to better understand how a person’s individual gut health relates to various human pathologies, or to the origin and nature of human diseases.
“This is the first example of the use of bioluminescent imaging probes in humans,” Goun said. “The gut microbiome plays a major role in various health issues such as cancer, diabetes, obesity, Parkinson’s disease, depression and autism, and now this new tool will help us better understand the relationship between bowel function and these diseases. In addition, it will allow us to develop more effective probiotics and prebiotics for improving gut health.
Emphasizing the promise of personalized health care and the impact of large-scale interdisciplinary collaboration, the University of Missouri System’s NextGen Precision Health initiative brings together innovators from the system’s four research universities in pursuit of advancements in precision health that changes life. It’s a collaborative effort to leverage the strengths of Mizzou and the entire UM system for a better future for Missouri health. An important part of the initiative is the construction of the new NextGen Precision Health building, which will expand collaboration between researchers, clinicians and industry leaders in a cutting-edge research facility.
Reference
Khodakivskyi PV, Lauber CL, Yevtodiyenko A, et al. Non-invasive imaging and quantification of bile salt hydrolase activity: from bacteria to humans. Scientific advances. 2021; 7 (6): eaaz9857. doi: 10.1126 / sciadv.aaz9857
This article has been republished from the following materials. Note: Material may have been modified for length and content. For more information, please contact the cited source.
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