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Scientists working on the gut microbiome have discovered and isolated more than 100 species of completely new bacteria from the intestines of healthy people. The study of the Wellcome Sanger Institute, the Hudson Institute of Medical Research of Australia and the European Bioinformatics Institute of EMBL has created the most comprehensive collection of human intestinal bacteria to date. This will help researchers around the world to study how our microbiome keeps us healthy and its role in the disease.
Posted today (4 February) in Nature BiotechnologyThis new resource will enable scientists to detect bacteria in the gut more accurately and faster than ever before. It will also serve as a foundation for the development of new methods of treating diseases such as gastrointestinal disorders, infections and immune diseases.
About 2% of a person's body weight is due to a bacterium and the gut microbiome is a major bacterial site and an essential contributor to human health. The imbalances in our intestinal microbiome can contribute to complex diseases and conditions such as inflammatory bowel disease, allergies to irritable bowel syndrome and obesity. However, as many species of intestinal bacteria are extremely difficult to grow in the laboratory, our knowledge is extremely deficient.
In this study, researchers studied stool samples from 20 people in the UK and Canada and were successful in growing and sequencing the DNA's 737 individual bacterial strains. The badysis of these isolates revealed 273 distinct bacterial species, including 173 that had never been sequenced before. Of these, 105 species had never even been isolated before.
Dr. Samuel Forster, lead author of the Wellcome Sanger Institute and the Hudson Institute of Medical Research in Australia, said: "This study has led to the creation of the largest and most comprehensive public database on related intestinal bacteria. Human health: The gut microbiome plays a major role in health and disease, and this important resource will fundamentally change the way researchers study the microbiome. "
Standard methods to understand the impact of the gut microbiome on human health consist in sequencing the DNA of mixed samples of intestinal bacteria to try to understand each component. However, these studies were seriously hampered by the absence of individually isolated bacteria and reference genomes.
The new crop collection and reference genomes will make it easier and more cost-effective for researchers to identify bacteria in the community and to research their role in the development of the disease.
Dr. Rob Finn, author of the European Institute of Bioinformatics at EMBL, said: "For researchers who are trying to determine which species of bacteria are present in a person's microbiome, the database of Reference genomes from pure isolates of intestinal bacteria is crucial to want to test a hypothesis, for example that a particular species is enriched in a given disease, they can get the isolate from the collection and perform physical tests in the laboratory if this species appears to be important. "
Dr. Trevor Lawley, lead author of the Wellcome Sanger Institute, said, "This collection of individual bacteria cultures will change the game for basic and translational research on the microbiome." By cultivating the unconscious, we have created a resource allowing to badyze the microbiome faster, cheaper and more accurate, which will allow us to further study their biology and their functions.This will eventually lead us to the development of new diagnostics and treatments for diseases such as disorders gastrointestinal, infections and immune diseases. "
Explore further:
Insects as drugs: exploiting new intestinal bacteria for human health
More information:
Nature Biotechnology (2019). DOI: 10.1038 / s41587-018-0009-7
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