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posted by cmn32480 on Thursday December 03 2015, @03:11PM   Printer-friendly
from the flashlight-up-your-colon dept.

in gastrointestinal microbiome research, an area rife with new discoveries and opportunities thanks to recent breakthroughs in our understanding of how influential these microbes are to our health, it has until now been very difficult to monitor microbial cells during their travels through mammalian gastrointestinal tracts. Microbial growth rates fluctuate in response to diet, wellness, exercise and the environment, and are affected by inter-organism competition inside the gut. Yet after entering the gut and before exiting, microbes pass through the "dark zone," where they cannot be accessed or analyzed using standard methods and without disrupting observation of natural conditions.

That challenge inspired Cameron Myhrvold, a Hertz graduate fellow at the Wyss Institute and Harvard Medical School and the lead author on the new study, to work with Silver to develop the novel synthetic "mark and recapture" technique known as DCDC.

Using a genetically engineered red-colored fluorescent protein controlled by a gene expression promoter as a visual flag, Myhrvold set out to quite literally mark and recapture E. coli, which are extremely common bacteria found in all mammalian guts. The DCDC strategy -- in which mice were fed the genetically engineered microbes and then their waste collected for analysis -- enabled the team to precisely count the bacterial cell divisions that occurred inside the mice's gastrointestinal tracts. The fluorescing protein "marked" the first generation of E. coli introduced to the gut and therefore allowed the team to calculate the population dynamics by analyzing the proportion of fluorescing cells versus the entire population of cells collected after their "recapture."

For 30-40 years understanding the human genome was considered the Rosetta Stone for human health. Has the study of microbiomes taken its place?


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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Thursday December 03 2015, @04:01PM

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Thursday December 03 2015, @04:01PM (#271405)

    20 years ago, talking about gut microbes influencing health would have gotten you lumped in with crystal worshipers.

    This looks like basic science-engineering to me, developing a method to measure gut microbe growth rates - what do you do with those measurements? Who knows, but at least you can make them. It's an area worth developing, get enough functional measurement tools operating and we may well come up with a profile of what is a healthy / diseased gut biome and a way to diagnose a person with a few measurements.

    2025: "Hi Doc, I'm feeling depressed." "Swallow this and collect your next 3 days of stool samples, send them to the lab and I'll call you." 4 days later: "You've got a lower GI imbalance of EC vs HP, get this suppository prescription filled and follow the dosage schedule for a week, then call me."

    Of course, this will be a longshot for development since the treatment is a relatively simple (aka generic) cure and not a life-long maintenance prescription of high cost symptom masking drugs.
     

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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by tibman on Thursday December 03 2015, @04:25PM

    by tibman (134) Subscriber Badge on Thursday December 03 2015, @04:25PM (#271418)

    You're right that it has a quack feel to it. That we are a walking habitat for bacteria that makeup something like 30% of all the cells in our bodies. That if our inhabitants are having a bad day it expresses itself as a real physical illness. Makes me feel like a planet or something. I can't communicate with them except for causing cataclysmic events the equivalent of floods, asteroid bombardment, hurricanes, and volcanic eruptions.

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    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 03 2015, @04:48PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 03 2015, @04:48PM (#271431)

      hippppppie

      Think of yourself as a garden.

      Fertilize the soil (Eat nutritiously).
      Plant new vegetables (e.g., probiotics, fermented foods).
      Pull the weeds(e.g., refrain from sugar).

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 03 2015, @06:40PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 03 2015, @06:40PM (#271480)

      I don't have a primary reference off-hand but most scientists quote the "bacteria living on and in you outnumber your cells 10 to 1" figure.

      Trying to track down a primary study from a review (that references another review that references another review) got me to this paper (which sounds like aother review):
      Tancrède C. Role of human microflora in health and disease. Eur J Clin Microbiol Infect Dis 1992;11:1012–5.

    • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday December 03 2015, @07:14PM

      by JoeMerchant (3937) on Thursday December 03 2015, @07:14PM (#271505)

      If you go by cell count, your cells are outnumbered by the microbes in your gut (not even counting the ones on your skin, etc.)

      They do mass less than your cells, because they're generally much smaller.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 03 2015, @04:36PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 03 2015, @04:36PM (#271423)

    Indeed.
    I'm itching to conduct some research too...on its influence on brain.

  • (Score: 3, Funny) by FatPhil on Thursday December 03 2015, @05:17PM

    by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Thursday December 03 2015, @05:17PM (#271449) Homepage
    Suppository? You can shove that where the sun don't shine!
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