Project description:Gut microbiome research is rapidly moving towards the functional characterization of the microbiota by means of shotgun meta-omics. Here, we selected a cohort of healthy subjects from an indigenous and monitored Sardinian population to analyze their gut microbiota using both shotgun metagenomics and shotgun metaproteomics. We found a considerable divergence between genetic potential and functional activity of the human healthy gut microbiota, in spite of a quite comparable taxonomic structure revealed by the two approaches. Investigation of inter-individual variability of taxonomic features revealed Bacteroides and Akkermansia as remarkably conserved and variable in abundance within the population, respectively. Firmicutes-driven butyrogenesis (mainly due to Faecalibacterium spp.) was shown to be the functional activity with the higher expression rate and the lower inter-individual variability in the study cohort, highlighting the key importance of the biosynthesis of this microbial by-product for the gut homeostasis. The taxon-specific contribution to functional activities and metabolic tasks was also examined, giving insights into the peculiar role of several gut microbiota members in carbohydrate metabolism (including polysaccharide degradation, glycan transport, glycolysis and short-chain fatty acid production). In conclusion, our results provide useful indications regarding the main functions actively exerted by the gut microbiota members of a healthy human cohort, and support metaproteomics as a valuable approach to investigate the functional role of the gut microbiota in health and disease.
Project description:Given the gut microbiota involve aging processing, we performed comparative analysis of gut bacteriophage between older and young subjects using next-generation sequencing (NGS). In our previous study, we found that the Ruminococcaceae is higher in aged subjects comparing to young one. To identify the bacteriophage targeting to the Ruminococcaceae, we also access the composition of phage in the Ruminococcaceae (ATCC, TSD-27) after incubated with human stool samples. The Lactobacillus (ATCC, LGG) targeting phage was used as the control. The virome sequencing analysis using NGS indicated that Myoviridae are high enrich in young subjects and predominate in TSD-27 targeting phage.
Project description:Opioid analgesics are frequently prescribed in the United States and worldwide. However, serious side effects such as addiction, immunosuppression and gastrointestinal symptoms limit long term use. In the current study using a chronic morphine-murine model a longitudinal approach was undertaken to investigate the role of morphine modulation of gut microbiome as a mechanism contributing to the negative consequences associated with opioids use. The results revealed a significant shift in the gut microbiome and metabolome within 24 hours following morphine treatment when compared to placebo. Morphine induced gut microbial dysbiosis exhibited distinct characteristic signatures profiles including significant increase in communities associated with pathogenic function, decrease in communities associated with stress tolerance. Collectively, these results reveal opioids-induced distinct alteration of gut microbiome, may contribute to opioids-induced pathogenesis. Therapeutics directed at these targets may prolong the efficacy long term opioid use with fewer side effects.
Project description:This project contains raw data, intermediate files and results is a re-analysis of the publicly available dataset from the PRIDE dataset PXD005780. The RAW files were processed using ThermoRawFileParser, SearchGUI and PeptideShaker through standard settings (see ‘Data Processing Protocol’). This reanalysis work is part of the MetaPUF (MetaProteomics with Unknown Function) project, which is a collaboration between EMBL-EBI and the University of Luxembourg. The dataset was selected with the following conditions: 1. It has been made publicly available in PRIDE and focuses on metaproteomics of the human gut; 2. The corresponding metagenomics assemblies were also available from ENA (European Nucleotide Archive) or MGnify. The processed peptide reports for each sample are available to view at the contig level on the MGnify website. In total, the reanalysis identified 15,417 unique proteins from 15 samples.