Scientists Have Made a Human Microbiome From Scratch (nytimes.com) 21
To better understand how microbes affect our health, researchers combined 119 species of bacteria naturally found in the human body. From a report: Our bodies are home to hundreds or thousands of species of microbes -- nobody is sure quite how many. That's just one of many mysteries about the so-called human microbiome. Our inner ecosystem fends off pathogens, helps digest food and may even influence behavior. But scientists have yet to figure out exactly which microbes do what or how. Many studies suggest that many species have to work together to do each of the microbiome's jobs.
To better understand how microbes affect our health, scientists have for the first time created a synthetic human microbiome, combining 119 species of bacteria naturally found in the human body. When the researchers gave the concoction to mice that did not have a microbiome of their own, the bacterial strains established themselves and remained stable -- even when the scientists introduced other microbes. The new synthetic microbiome can even withstand aggressive pathogens and cause mice to develop a healthy immune system, as a full microbiome does.
The findings were published on Tuesday in the journal Cell. A better understanding of the microbiome could potentially lead to a powerful way to treat a host of diseases. Already, doctors can use the microbiome to treat life-threatening gut infections of the bacteria Clostridium difficile. They just have to transplant stool from a healthy donor, and the infection usually goes away.
To better understand how microbes affect our health, scientists have for the first time created a synthetic human microbiome, combining 119 species of bacteria naturally found in the human body. When the researchers gave the concoction to mice that did not have a microbiome of their own, the bacterial strains established themselves and remained stable -- even when the scientists introduced other microbes. The new synthetic microbiome can even withstand aggressive pathogens and cause mice to develop a healthy immune system, as a full microbiome does.
The findings were published on Tuesday in the journal Cell. A better understanding of the microbiome could potentially lead to a powerful way to treat a host of diseases. Already, doctors can use the microbiome to treat life-threatening gut infections of the bacteria Clostridium difficile. They just have to transplant stool from a healthy donor, and the infection usually goes away.
So they made a big orange blob (Score:1, Offtopic)
that golfs and eats junk-food all day.
Re: (Score:2)
No, that was the C. difficile
Ya, but what about ... (Score:3)
"From a report" (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Alice G. Cheng et al, Design, construction, and in vivo augmentation of a complex gut microbiome, Cell (2022). DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2022.08.003
Re:"From a report" (Score:4, Interesting)
As a public suervice here is the original article in Cell [doi.org] and here is the PR-announcement from Stanford [stanford.edu].
It is very nice and extensive work. TLDR skipping over 90% of the work: Identified ~160 common microbial species from human gut; managed to get cultures of about ~100 from them to construct a "microbiome" version 1; put the version 1 "microbiom" in mice that were stripped from their own microbiomes and showed that it works.; finally fed the mice human s*it and found another 15 species filled niches in the version 1 of the microbiome to produce version 2.
This is very significant work that has immediate practical impact for cancer patients, patients who have been treated with extensive antibiotic therapy, or patients with certain nasty intestinal infections like recurring Clostridium that may be lethal. There has always been the possibility to give these patients "fecal transplants" but these are very risky, because you cannot guarantee that you not going to give the patient something even nastier. Now with well define microbiome, you know exactly what you are giving the patient and it should be possible to it safely.
Re: (Score:2)
" immediate practical impact for cancer patients"
Whoa there lightning, https://twitter.com/justsaysin... [twitter.com]
We don't want to be arrogant (ahem emergency vaccine). There's a process this needs to go through before its used on humans. The world is not a laboratory.
Re: (Score:2)
Fecal Transplant Avoidance (Score:2)
I mean, that has to be the goal right?
was about time (Score:2)
since contrary to what philosophy and and religion have traditionally considered tenets of what's supposed to define the human cultural construct called "human being", we are essentially a multiorganism. this is essential research we absolutely need to do more of if we want to ever have a spark of understanding of what we really are and how we actually work. i rise my (probiotic) beer to these scientists, very interesting results.
Re: (Score:2)
disclaimer: beer scores very low in grammatic and syntax.
Only bacteria? No Viruses, Archaea and Fungi? (Score:3)
Re:Only bacteria? No Viruses, Archaea and Fungi? (Score:4, Interesting)
Other than some HERVs that activate early in fetal development, I'm not aware of any beneficial viruses. Same with fungi. At best, the immune system expends resources removing them (ie neutrophil extracellular traps for large hyphae). Viruses like HIV produce up to 10 billion virons per day, bogging down the immune system. Latent viruses bind p300 causing disregulation by microcompetition. Viruses also put out oncoproteins, which affect the fate of non infected cells and serve to spread viral infection. Nothing beneficial in any of these viruses- human herpes1-8, hpv, HERV-W env, polyomavirus.. most likely they're the cause of most diseases, obesity, heart disease and cancer. Bacteria on the other hand do produce beneficial proteins, and there are countless studies enumerating specific strains such as reuteri that show benefits by themselves.
Re: Only bacteria? No Viruses, Archaea and Fungi? (Score:3)
There are certain viruses, called oncolytic viruses, that can fight and maybe even cure certain cancers or small/early stage tumors. There are also viruses that confer immunity to related species of theirs. For example, if you get cowpox, you would may gain some immunity to small pox. Viruses have immunomodulatory properties so there might be some doing things on that front we do not know about. And btw, I am leaving it viruses that target non-humans or bacteria. Those have numerous uses too, for example in
Re: (Score:2)
I saw a documentary the best part of 20 years ago about how Georgian (as in Tbilisi, not Atlanta) researchers were using viruses called bacteriophages to fight bacterial infections. The documentary asked why other countries didn't research those as well as pharmaceutical treatments. I see occasional mention of bacteriophages nowadays, but the question could probably still be asked.
(For clarity: I'm not aware of any bacteriophage being a normal part of a human microbiome. I'm just responding to the implied q
Re: (Score:2)
Other than some HERVs that activate early in fetal development, I'm not aware of any beneficial viruses.
There are plenty: https://www.nature.com/article... [nature.com]
Same with fungi. At best, the immune system expends resources removing them
Nope: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.go... [nih.gov]
And to provide a link to similar findings about Archaea: https://microbiomejournal.biom... [biomedcentral.com]
Scratch (Score:2)
Probably not the best metaphor. Do you know many bacteria are in a scratch?
Poop Joke (Score:1)