Project description:Significant gut microbiota heterogeneity exists amongst UC patients though the clinical implications of this variance are unknown. European and South Asian UC patients exhibit distinct disease risk alleles, many of which regulate immune function and relate to variation in gut microbiota β-diversity. We hypothesized ethnically distinct UC patients exhibit discrete gut microbiotas with unique luminal metabolic programming that influence adaptive immune responses and relate to clinical status. Using parallel bacterial 16S rRNA and fungal ITS2 sequencing of fecal samples (UC n=30; healthy n=13), we corroborated previous observations of UC-associated depletion of bacterial diversity and demonstrated significant gastrointestinal expansion of Saccharomycetales as a novel UC characteristic. We identified four distinct microbial community states (MCS 1-4), confirmed their existence using microbiota data from an independent UC cohort, and show they co-associate with patient ethnicity and degree of disease severity. Each MCS was predicted to be uniquely enriched for specific amino acid, carbohydrate, and lipid metabolism pathways and exhibited significant luminal enrichment of metabolic products from these pathways. Using a novel in vitro human DC/T-cell assay we show that DC exposure to patient fecal water led to MCS -specific changes in T-cell populations, particularly the Th1:Th2 ratio, and that patients with the most severe disease exhibited the greatest Th2 skewing. Thus, based on ethnicity, microbiome composition, and associated metabolic dysfunction, UC patients may be stratified in a clinically and immunologically meaningful manner, providing a platform for the development of FMC-focused therapy. Fecal microbiome was assessed with Affymetrix PhyloChip arrays from patients with ulcerative colitis and healthy controls.
Project description:We transplanted gut microbiota via fecal transfer from TD and ASD children into germ-free wild-type mice, and reveal that colonization with ASD microbiomes induces hallmark changes in sociability, vocalization, and stereotypies. The brains of mice receiving gut microbiota from ASD individuals display alternative splicing patterns for genes dysregulated in the human ASD brain.
Project description:<p>The aims of the multi-center Ulcerative Colitis Human Microbiome Project (UCHMP) are to examine the role of the enteric microbiome in causing human ulcerative colitis, specifically the development of pouchitis. Pouchitis is an inflammatory condition of the surgically-created ileoanal pouch that serves as a pseudo-rectum in patients with ulcerative colitis who have undergone a total colectomy. It is a condition unique to ulcerative colitis (UC), as it rarely occurs in non-UC patients who have the same procedure. Within one year, about 50% of patients will develop pouchitis. The condition is almost certainly due to aspects of the pouch microbiota on a background of genetic susceptibility, as most patients respond to treatment with antibiotics. While there have been reports on the microbiota in pouchitis patients, all have been performed after the inflammatory process is initiated, rendering interpretation of the results difficult, as the inflammatory process itself will change the microbiota.</p> <p><b>Our project is therefore unique and possibly the only opportunity in the role of the enteric microbiome in IBD in a prospective manner, thereby establishing potentially important causal relationships between microbiota structure or function and development of UC.</b>The studies also offer two additional advantages. First, the development of the pouch microbiota can be observed prospectively. Second, the cause of antibiotic treatment failure in some patients with pouchitis may be revealed. The two aims are (1) to identify causal factors in the structure and/or function of the enteric microbiota in the development of pouchitis, and (2) to determine the basis of treatment failure in UC pouchitis patients. Our analyses will include serial measurements of enteric microbial structure (16S rRNA gene-based), function (metagenomics and functional candidate genes), and cultivation, the latter to enhance interpretation of gene sequences derived from metagenomes and targeted gene surveys (either functional or 16S genes).</p> <p>The insights gained from these studies will help us understand the fundamental and causative roles of the enteric microbiome in human inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD). This information will be the basis for developing strategies to restore host-microbial relationships to prevent and treat IBD.</p>
Project description:We report the first case series of ICI associated colitis successfully treated with fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT), with reconstitution of the gut microbiome and a relative increase in the proportion of regulatory T cells (Tregs) within the colonic mucosa. These preliminary data provide evidence that modulation of the gut microbiome may abrogate ICI-associated colitis.
Project description:This study aimed to analyze changes in gut microbiota composition in mice after transplantation of fecal microbiota (FMT, N = 6) from the feces of NSCLC patients by analyzing fecal content using 16S rRNA sequencing, 10 days after transplantation. Specific-pathogen-free (SPF) mice were used for each experiments (N=4) as controls.