Decoding the language of our microbiome

Researchers at the Skaggs School of Pharmacy at the University of California (UC) San Diego have discovered thousands of previously unknown bile acids. Bile acids are a type of molecule that the gut microbiome uses to communicate with the rest of the body. This discovery could improve our understanding of the gut microbiome and lead to the development of treatments for diseases related to the gut microbiome, such as type 2 diabetes and enteric diseases.

The survey results are cell In an article titled “The underappreciated diversity of bile acid modifications”

“The modification repertoire of bile acids and related steroid lipids by host and microbial metabolism remains incompletely characterized,” the researchers wrote. “To address this knowledge gap, we analyzed tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) spectra by filtering the 1.2 billion publicly available MS/MS spectra for bile acid-selective ion patterns. Created reusable resources.

“Bile acids are important components of the language of the gut microbiome, and the discovery of so many new types greatly expands the vocabulary for understanding what the gut microbes do and how they do it. It spread,” said lead author Dr. Peter Dorestein, a professor at Skaggs College. Professor of Pharmacology and Pediatrics, Department of Pharmacy and Pharmacy, University of California, San Diego School of Medicine. “It's like going from 'She Spotted Run' to Shakespeare.”

Until now, the rich diversity and functional range of secondary bile acids has been underestimated by scientists.

“When I started in the lab, there were about a few hundred known bile acids,” says study co-author Ipshita Mohanty, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow in Dorestein's lab. “We are now discovering thousands more bile acids and working to understand that these bile acids do much more than just aid in digestion.”

Bile acids not only aid in digestion, but they are also important signaling molecules that help regulate the immune system and perform important metabolic functions.

“Because bile acids interact with our microbiome, the effects of bile acids extend far beyond the digestive system, and the diseases we treat with bile acids can extend as well. “The list of diseases associated with acid is a mile long, and there are several FDA approvals for this type of acid as a treatment,” says co-author Helena Mannocchio-Russo, a postdoctoral fellow in the Dorestein lab. said the doctor.

To discover these molecules, researchers leveraged unique resources at the University of California, San Diego. Dorrestein is director of the Collaborative Microbial Metabolite Center (CMMC). CMMC is the first collaboration of its kind between UC San Diego and UC Riverside to collect and centralize information on metabolites produced by microorganisms to help researchers learn more about their effects. It is intended to help you learn. About human health and the environment.

“While data sharing is common in other fields of biology, such as genomics, until now there hasn't been an infrastructure in place for microbial metabolomics researchers to share data,” Dorestein said. Ta. “Ultimately, these breakthroughs are the result of collaboration and the convergence of computing power, and we look forward to many more from CMMC.”

“We're rewriting the textbook on human metabolism,” Dorestein said. “If you had talked to me a few years ago, I would have told you that it would take decades to solve this puzzle, but now we might be able to solve it within five years. This is a truly remarkable change in our ability to treat disease, and we believe it will revolutionize the way we approach disease.”