Edible fungal polysaccharides, the gut microbiota, and host health

AbstractObesity and its complications constitute a substantial burden. Considerable published research describes the novel relationships between obesity and gut microbiota communities. It is becoming evident that microbiota behave in a pivotal role in their ability to influence homeostatic mechanisms either to the benefit or detriment of host health, the extent of which is not fully understood. A greater understanding of the contribution of gut microbiota towards host pathophysiology is revealing new therapeutic avenues to tackle the global obesity epidemic. This review focuses on causal relationships and associations with obesity, proposed central mechanisms encouraging the development of obesity and promising prospective methods for microbiota manipulation.

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The Gut Microbiota and Healthy Aging: A Mini-Review

Gerontology ◽

10.1159/000490615 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 64 (6) ◽

pp. 513-520 ◽

Cited By ~ 59

Author(s):

Sangkyu Kim ◽

S. Michal Jazwinski

Keyword(s):

Gut Microbiota ◽

Individual Variation ◽

Gut Microbiome ◽

Chronological Age ◽

Low Grade ◽

Beneficial Effects ◽

Gut Dysbiosis ◽

Age Related ◽

Host Health ◽

Nutrient Signaling

The gut microbiota shows a wide inter-individual variation, but its within-individual variation is relatively stable over time. A functional core microbiome, provided by abundant bacterial taxa, seems to be common to various human hosts regardless of their gender, geographic location, and age. With advancing chronological age, the gut microbiota becomes more diverse and variable. However, when measures of biological age are used with adjustment for chronological age, overall richness decreases, while a certain group of bacteria associated with frailty increases. This highlights the importance of considering biological or functional measures of aging. Studies using model organisms indicate that age-related gut dysbiosis may contribute to unhealthy aging and reduced longevity. The gut microbiome depends on the host nutrient signaling pathways for its beneficial effects on host health and lifespan, and gut dysbiosis disrupting the interdependence may diminish the beneficial effects or even have reverse effects. Gut dysbiosis can trigger the innate immune response and chronic low-grade inflammation, leading to many age-related degenerative pathologies and unhealthy aging. The gut microbiota communicates with the host through various biomolecules, nutrient signaling-independent pathways, and epigenetic mechanisms. Disturbance of these communications by age-related gut dysbiosis can affect the host health and lifespan. This may explain the impact of the gut microbiome on health and aging.

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NEMoE: A nutrition aware regularized mixture of experts model addressing diet-cohort heterogeneity of gut microbiota in Parkinson's disease

10.1101/2021.11.10.21266194 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Xiangnan Xu ◽

Michal Lubomski ◽

Andrew J Holmes ◽

Carolyn M Sue ◽

Ryan L Davis ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Parkinson’S Disease ◽

Parkinson's Disease ◽

Gut Microbiota ◽

Predictive Performance ◽

Health State ◽

Mixture Of Experts ◽

Model Framework ◽

Novel Approach ◽

Host Health ◽

Patient Health

The microbiome plays a fundamental role in human health and diet is one of the strongest modulators of the gut microbiome. However, interactions between microbiota and host health are complex and diverse. Understanding the interplay between diet, the microbiome and health state could enable the design of personalized intervention strategies and improve the health and wellbeing of affected individuals. A common approach to this is to divide the study population into smaller cohorts based on dietary preferences in the hope of identifying specific microbial signatures. However, classification of patients based solely on diet is unlikely to reflect the microbiome-host health relationship or the taxonomic microbiome makeup. To this end, we present a novel approach, the Nutrition-Ecotype Mixture of Experts (NEMoE) model, for establishing associations between gut microbiota and health state that accounts for diet-specific cohort variability using a regularized mixture of experts model framework with an integrated parameter sharing strategy to ensure data driven diet-cohort identification consistency across taxonomic levels. The success of our approach was demonstrated through a series of simulation studies, in which NEMoE showed robustness with regard to parameter selection and varying degrees of data heterogeneity. Further application to real-world microbiome data from a Parkinson's disease cohort revealed that NEMoE is capable of not only improving predictive performance for Parkinson's Disease but also for identifying diet-specific microbiome markers of disease. Our results indicate that NEMoE can be used to uncover diet-specific relationships between nutritional-ecotype and patient health and to contextualize precision nutrition for different diseases.

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Role of Biological Sex in the Cardiovascular-Gut Microbiome Axis

Frontiers in Cardiovascular Medicine ◽

10.3389/fcvm.2021.759735 ◽

2022 ◽

Vol 8 ◽

Author(s):

Shuangyue Li ◽

Georgios Kararigas

Keyword(s):

Gut Microbiota ◽

Gut Microbiome ◽

Microbial Composition ◽

Biological Sex ◽

Technological Advances ◽

Host Health ◽

Health And Disease ◽

And Function ◽

Insight Into

There has been a recent, unprecedented interest in the role of gut microbiota in host health and disease. Technological advances have dramatically expanded our knowledge of the gut microbiome. Increasing evidence has indicated a strong link between gut microbiota and the development of cardiovascular diseases (CVD). In the present article, we discuss the contribution of gut microbiota in the development and progression of CVD. We further discuss how the gut microbiome may differ between the sexes and how it may be influenced by sex hormones. We put forward that regulation of microbial composition and function by sex might lead to sex-biased disease susceptibility, thereby offering a mechanistic insight into sex differences in CVD. A better understanding of this could identify novel targets, ultimately contributing to the development of innovative preventive, diagnostic and therapeutic strategies for men and women.

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Comparative analysis of gut microbiota among the male, female and pregnant giant pandas (Ailuropoda Melanoleuca)

Open Life Sciences ◽

10.1515/biol-2019-0032 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 14 (1) ◽

pp. 288-298

Author(s):

Siyue Zhao ◽

Caiwu Li ◽

Guo Li ◽

Shengzhi Yang ◽

Yingming Zhou ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Comparative Analysis ◽

16S Rrna ◽

Gut Microbiota ◽

High Throughput Sequencing ◽

Vital Role ◽

Ailuropoda Melanoleuca ◽

Its Sequencing ◽

Giant Pandas ◽

Host Health ◽

Rrna Sequencing

AbstractThe giant panda (GP) was the most endangered species in China, and gut microbiota plays a vital role in host health. To determine the differences of the gut microbiota among the male, female and pregnant GPs, a comparative analysis of gut microbiota in GPs was carried out by 16S rRNA and ITS high-throughput sequencing. In 16S rRNA sequencing, 435 OTUs, 17 phyla and 182 genera were totally detected. Firmicutes (53.6%) was the predominant phylum followed by Proteobacteria (37.8%) and Fusobacteria (7.1%). Escherichia/Shigella (35.9%) was the most prevalent genus followed by Streptococcus (25.9%) and Clostridium (11.1%). In ITS sequencing, 920 OTUs, 6 phyla and 322 genera were also detected. Ascomycota (71.3%) was the predominant phylum followed by Basidiomycota (28.4%) and Zygomycota (0.15%). Purpureocillium (4.4%) was the most prevalent genus followed by Cladosporium (2.5%) and Pezicula (2.4%). Comparative analysis indicated that the male GPs harbor a higher abundance of phylum Firmicutes than female GPs with the contribution from genus Streptococcus. Meanwhile, the female GPs harbor a higher abundance of phylum Proteobacteria than male GPs with the contribution from genus Escherichia/ Shigella. In addition, the shift in bacteria from female to pregnant GPs indicated that phylum Firmicutes increased significantly with the contribution from Clostridium in the gut, which may provide an opportunity to study possible associations with low reproduction of the GPs.

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High Oscillospira abundance indicates constipation and low BMI in the Guangdong Gut Microbiome Project

Scientific Reports ◽

10.1038/s41598-020-66369-z ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 10 (1) ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Yi-ran Chen ◽

Hui-min Zheng ◽

Guo-xia Zhang ◽

Fang-lan Chen ◽

Li-dan Chen ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Blood Pressure ◽

Gut Microbiota ◽

Gut Microbiome ◽

Fasting Blood Glucose ◽

Density Lipoprotein ◽

Sleep Time ◽

Host Health ◽

Low Bmi ◽

Gut Microbial Community ◽

Fold Cross Validation

Abstract Oscillospira is a common yet rarely cultivated gut bacterial genus. Recently human gut microbiota studies have demonstrated its underlying significance for host health. However, little is known about Oscillospira-related host information and the links between Oscillospira and other members of the gut microbial community. To study the ecology of Oscillospira and gain insights into Oscillospira-related host physiological conditions, we analyzed data from the Guangdong Gut Microbiome Project, one of the largest gut microbiota database currently. Data of 6376 participants were analyzed. We studied the prevalence and relative abundance of Oscillospira as well as the profiles of associated microbial communities. We found that Oscillospira is closely related to human health because its abundance was positively correlated with microbial diversity, high density lipoprotein, and sleep time, and was inversely correlated with diastolic blood pressure, systolic blood pressure, fasting blood glucose, triglyceride, uric acid and Bristol stool type. Moreover, random forest analysis with five-fold cross validation showed Oscillospira could be a predictor of low BMI and constipation in the subset. Overall, in this study, we provide a basic understanding of Oscillospira-related microbiota profile and physiological parameters of the host. Our results indicate Oscillospira may play a role in aggravating constipation.

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The intestinal protist Blastocystis is not a common member of the healthy infant gut microbiota in a Westernized country (Ireland)

Parasitology ◽

10.1017/s0031182018000033 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 145 (10) ◽

pp. 1274-1278 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

P. D. Scanlan ◽

C. J. Hill ◽

R. P. Ross ◽

C. A. Ryan ◽

C. Stanton ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Gut Microbiota ◽

Species Interactions ◽

Healthy Adult ◽

Adult Population ◽

Healthy Infant ◽

Specific Primers ◽

Human Infants ◽

Asymptomatic Carriage ◽

Specific Composition ◽

Host Health

AbstractResearch into the gut microbiota of human infants is necessary in order to better understand how inter-species interactions and ecological succession shape the diversity of the gut microbiota, and in turn, how the specific composition of the gut microbiota impacts on host health both during infancy and in later years. Blastocystis is a ubiquitous intestinal protist that has been linked to a number of intestinal and extra-intestinal diseases. However, emerging data show that asymptomatic carriage is common and that Blastocystis is prevalent in the healthy adult gut microbiota. Nonetheless, little is known about the prevalence and diversity of this microorganism in the healthy infant gut, including when and how individuals become colonized by Blastocystis. Here, we surveyed the prevalence and diversity of Blastocystis in an infant population (n = 59) from an industrialized country (Ireland) using Blastocystis-specific primers at three or more time-points up to 24 months old. Only three infants were positive for Blastocystis (prevalence = 5%) and this was only noted for samples collected at month 24. This rate is comparatively low relative to previously reported prevalence rates in the contemporaneous adult population. These data suggest that infants in Westernized countries that are successfully colonized by Blastocystis most likely acquire this microorganism via horizontal transfer.

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Gut Microbiota Metabolism and Interaction with Food Components

International Journal of Molecular Sciences ◽

10.3390/ijms21103688 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 21 (10) ◽

pp. 3688 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Pamela Vernocchi ◽

Federica Del Chierico ◽

Lorenza Putignani

Keyword(s):

Gut Microbiota ◽

Disease Onset ◽

Human Gut ◽

Food Components ◽

Host Health ◽

Wide Variability ◽

Gut Microbe ◽

A Cell ◽

Health And Disease ◽

Biochemical Mechanisms

The human gut contains trillions of microbes that play a central role in host biology, including the provision of key nutrients from the diet. Food is a major source of precursors for metabolite production; in fact, diet modulates the gut microbiota (GM) as the nutrients, derived from dietary intake, reach the GM, affecting both the ecosystem and microbial metabolic profile. GM metabolic ability has an impact on human nutritional status from childhood. However, there is a wide variability of dietary patterns that exist among individuals. The study of interactions with the host via GM metabolic pathways is an interesting field of research in medicine, as microbiota members produce myriads of molecules with many bioactive properties. Indeed, much evidence has demonstrated the importance of metabolites produced by the bacterial metabolism from foods at the gut level that dynamically participate in various biochemical mechanisms of a cell as a reaction to environmental stimuli. Hence, the GM modulate homeostasis at the gut level, and the alteration in their composition can concur in disease onset or progression, including immunological, inflammatory, and metabolic disorders, as well as cancer. Understanding the gut microbe–nutrient interactions will increase our knowledge of how diet affects host health and disease, thus enabling personalized therapeutics and nutrition.

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Prebiotics from Seaweeds: An Ocean of Opportunity?

Marine Drugs ◽

10.3390/md17060327 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 17 (6) ◽

pp. 327 ◽

Cited By ~ 23

Author(s):

Paul Cherry ◽

Supriya Yadav ◽

Conall R. Strain ◽

Philip J. Allsopp ◽

Emeir M. McSorley ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Fatty Acids ◽

Gut Microbiota ◽

Animal Studies ◽

Health Benefit ◽

Microbial Composition ◽

Previous Discussion ◽

Host Health ◽

Health Related

Seaweeds are an underexploited and potentially sustainable crop which offer a rich source of bioactive compounds, including novel complex polysaccharides, polyphenols, fatty acids, and carotenoids. The purported efficacies of these phytochemicals have led to potential functional food and nutraceutical applications which aim to protect against cardiometabolic and inflammatory risk factors associated with non-communicable diseases, such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular disease, inflammatory bowel disease, and some cancers. Concurrent understanding that perturbations of gut microbial composition and metabolic function manifest throughout health and disease has led to dietary strategies, such as prebiotics, which exploit the diet-host-microbe paradigm to modulate the gut microbiota, such that host health is maintained or improved. The prebiotic definition was recently updated to “a substrate that is selectively utilised by host microorganisms conferring a health benefit”, which, given that previous discussion regarding seaweed prebiotics has focused upon saccharolytic fermentation, an opportunity is presented to explore how non-complex polysaccharide components from seaweeds may be metabolised by host microbial populations to benefit host health. Thus, this review provides an innovative approach to consider how the gut microbiota may utilise seaweed phytochemicals, such as polyphenols, polyunsaturated fatty acids, and carotenoids, and provides an updated discussion regarding the catabolism of seaweed-derived complex polysaccharides with potential prebiotic activity. Additional in vitro screening studies and in vivo animal studies are needed to identify potential prebiotics from seaweeds, alongside untargeted metabolomics to decipher microbial-derived metabolites from seaweeds. Furthermore, controlled human intervention studies with health-related end points to elucidate prebiotic efficacy are required.

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