In my opinion, Curtis Huttenhower presented the newest perspectives for understanding human microbiome. Some ideas from his talk:
- Not who, but why: the IBD microbiome is defined by adaptation to oxidative stress.
- Niche specialization is crucial in human microbiome.
- Human Microbiome Project Unified Metabolic Analysis Network: Who’s there vs what they’re doing.
- Species-level resolution is critical for understanding microbiome function, strain-level is even better.
Some interesting ideas presented at the conference:
Ian Wilson:
- Disease and microbiome: causal or casual?
- Recolonization after Atbs resulted in cage-dependent subgroups with different bacterial populations and metabotypes.
Karen Scott:
- Anaerobic Roseburia/E. rectale group bacteria constitute 10% of gut microbiota in healthy individuals.
- The main fermentation product of Roseburia species is butyrate. The genomic analysis of the enzymes involved is complex.
- Dietary interventions (augmenting the amount of starch consumed) can dramatically affect Roseburia genus presence in gut.
Barbara Pachikian:
- Fructooligosaccharides (FOS) supplementation reverses hepatic steatosis.
Francisco Guarner:
- In IBD mucosal lesions are caused by immune response against colonic bacteria.
Paul Cotter:
- Bacteriocins as tools to alter the composition of gut microbiota.
Ruth Ley:
- In the third trimester of pregnancy gut bacterial composition shows a dramatic shift.
- The third trimester microbiota could induce low-grade inflammation, adiposity gain and reduced insulin sensitivity beneficial in pregnancy R.Ley
- Gut microbiota’s impact on metabolism: highly adaptive in pregnancy and detrimental in obese host.
Fredrik Backhed:
- Apoe -/- germ-free male mice are resistant to diet-induced atherosclerosis.
- Gut microbiota modulate bile acid synthesis.
Simon Murch:
- There are differences between the flora from cesarean infants and from vaginally delivered infants.
- Different bacteria induce different gene expression in the host
- Breast milking and reduction of antibiotic exposure are critical for microbial diversity in low birth weight neonates.
A. Walker:
- CF infants have more pathogenic bacteria in their lower respiratory microbiota (P. aeruginosa, S. maltophilia, B. cepacia)
Elisa Noll:
- Gut-microbial metabolism can alter host metabolism in the favour of obesity and insulin resistance.
Fergus Shanaham:
- What is a healthy gut? Low biodiversity implies more pathogens colonization.
Douwe van Sinderen:
- Bifidobacterial pili and surface polysaccharide allow competitive host colonization and persistence -Perhaps genes involved in colonization are not expressed in vitro.
Catarina Simoes:
- Diet affects the gut microbiota in twins.
Kathleen Sim:
- Missing bifidobacteria: undercounting in neonatal gut microbiota using classical universal primers.
Julian Marchesi:
- Experiments colonizing gut from mices with human microbiota
- Core functions of gut microbiota need to be useful to the host but at the same time to the bacteria.
Willem de Vos:
- Gut microbiome with low diversity in colitis
- Ileum microbiota is shaped by fast sugar uptake
- Microbiota diversity likely to provide resilience
- Diversity and stability characterize a healthy microbiome.
Jeremy K. Nicholson:
- There are many more targets for cancer in human microbiome than in human genome
- The microbiome as a therapeutic target
- Influence of maternal genome on early microbiome development.
