Project description:Early life gut microbiota plays a critical role in gut development, maturation of the immune response and protection against enteric pathogens such as Salmonella. In this study, we investigated how different gut microbiota compositions influence the host transcriptomic signatures and susceptibility to Salmonella infection in chicks.
Project description:In this study we investigated whether gut microbiota profile of Italian healthy volunteers could differ based on their geaographical origin. To this purpose, fecal samples were collected from 31 healthy individuals living in 3 different italian regions (Lombardy, North; Lazio, Center; Apulia, South) and their respective microbiota profiles were analyzed employing 16S metagenomic sequencing method. This study identifies differences in the gut microbiota content and richness among individuals with the same ethnicity coming from three different Italian regions.
Project description:Gut microbiota has profound effects on obesity and associated metabolic disorders. Targeting and shaping the gut microbiota via dietary intervention using probiotics, prebiotics and synbiotics can be effective in obesity management. Despite the well-known association between gut microbiota and obesity, the microbial alternations by synbiotics intervention, especially at the functional level, are still not characterized. In this study, we investigated the effects of synbiotics on high fat diet (HFD)-induced metabolic disorders, and systematically profiled the microbial profile at both the phylogenetic and functional levels. Synbiotics significantly reversed the HFD-induced change of microbial populations at the levels of richness, taxa and OTUs. Potentially important species Faecalibaculum rodentium and Alistipes putredinis that might mediate the beneficial effects of synbiotics were identified. At the functional level, short chain fatty acid and bile acid profiles revealed that interventions significantly restored cecal levels of acetate, propionate, and butyrate, and synbiotics reduced the elevated total bile acid level. Metaproteomics revealed the effect of synbiotics might be mediated through pathways involved in carbohydrate, amino acid, and energy metabolisms, replication and repair, etc. These results suggested that dietary intervention using our novel synbiotics alleviated HFD-induced weight gain and restored microbial ecosystem homeostasis phylogenetically and functionally.
Project description:Insect gut microbiota plays important roles in acquiring nutrition, preventing pathogens infection, immune responses, and communicating with the environment. Gut microbiota can be affected by some external factors such as foods, temperature, and antibiotics. Spodoptera frugiperda (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) is an important destructive pest of grain crops all over the world. The function of gut microbiota in S. frugiperda remains to be investigated. In this study, we fed the S. frugiperda with the antibiotic mixture (penicillin, gentamicin, rifampicin, and streptomycin) to perturb the gut microbiota, and further examined the effect of dysbiosis in gut microbiota on the gene expression of S. frugiperda by RNA sequencing. We found the composition and diversity of the gut bacterial community were changed in S. frugiperda after antibiotics treatmen, and the expression of genes related to energy and metabolic process were affected after antibiotics exposure in S. frugiperda. Our work will help understand the role of gut microbiota in insects.
Project description:We have previously demonstrated that the gut microbiota can play a role in the pathogenesis of conditions associated with exposure to environmental pollutants. It is well accepted that diets high in fermentable fibers such as inulin can beneficially modulate the gut microbiota and lessen the severity of pro-inflammatory diseases. Therefore, we aimed to test the hypothesis that hyperlipidemic mice fed a diet enriched with inulin would be protected from the pro-inflammatory toxic effects of PCB 126.
Project description:The gut microbiota influences systemic immunity and the function of distal tissues, including the brain, liver, skin, lung, and muscle. However, the role of the gut microbiota in the foreign body response (FBR) and fibrosis is largely unexplored. To investigate this connection, we perturbed the homeostasis of the murine gut microbiota via infection with the pathogenic bacterial species enterotoxigenic Bacteroides fragilis (ETBF) and implanted particulate material (mean particle size <600 μm) of the synthetic polymer polycaprolactone (PCL) into a distal muscle injury. ETBF infection in mice led to increased neutrophil and γδ T cell infiltration into the PCL implant site. ETBF infection alone promoted systemic inflammation, increased levels of neutrophils in lymphoid tissues, and altered skeletal muscle gene expression. At the PCL implant site, we found significant changes in the transcriptome of sorted stromal cells between infected and control mice, including differences related to ECM components such as proteoglycans and glycosaminoglycans. However, we did not observe ETBF-induced differences in fibrosis levels. These results demonstrate the ability of the gut microbiota to mediate long-distance effects such as immune and stromal responses to a distal biomaterial implant.
Project description:Study whether IL-33 participates in the cholangiopathies during C. sinensis infection,and whether the gut microbiota participates in the pathogenesis of clonorchiasis