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Quinn-Bohmann N, Wilmanski T, Sarmiento KR, Levy L, Lampe JW, Gurry T, Rappaport N, Ostrem EM, Venturelli OS, Diener C, Gibbons SM. Microbial community-scale metabolic modeling predicts personalized short chain fatty acid production profiles in the human gut. bioRxiv 2023:2023.02.28.530516. [PMID: 36909644 PMCID: PMC10002715 DOI: 10.1101/2023.02.28.530516] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 03/06/2023]
Abstract
Microbially-derived short chain fatty acids (SCFAs) in the human gut are tightly coupled to host metabolism, immune regulation, and integrity of the intestinal epithelium. However, the production of SCFAs can vary widely between individuals consuming the same diet, with lower levels often associated with disease. A systems-scale mechanistic understanding of this heterogeneity is lacking. We present a microbial community-scale metabolic modeling (MCMM) approach to predict individual-specific SCFA production profiles. We assess the quantitative accuracy of our MCMMs using in vitro, ex vivo, and in vivo data. Next, we show how MCMM SCFA predictions are significantly associated with blood-derived clinical chemistries, including cardiometabolic and immunological health markers, across a large human cohort. Finally, we demonstrate how MCMMs can be leveraged to design personalized dietary, prebiotic, and probiotic interventions that optimize SCFA production in the gut. Our results represent an important advance in engineering gut microbiome functional outputs for precision health and nutrition.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nick Quinn-Bohmann
- Institute for Systems Biology, Seattle, WA 98109, USA
- Molecular Engineering Graduate Program, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA
| | | | | | - Lisa Levy
- Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, Seattle, WA 98109, USA
| | | | - Thomas Gurry
- Pharmaceutical Biochemistry Group, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Geneva, Switzerland
- Myota GmbH, Berlin, Germany
| | - Noa Rappaport
- Center for Phenomic Health, Buck Institute for Research on Aging, Novato, CA 94945, USA
| | - Erin M. Ostrem
- Department of Biochemistry, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USA
| | - Ophelia S. Venturelli
- Department of Biochemistry, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USA
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USA
- Department of Chemical & Biological Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USA
- Department of Bacteriology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USA
| | | | - Sean M. Gibbons
- Institute for Systems Biology, Seattle, WA 98109, USA
- Molecular Engineering Graduate Program, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA
- Department of Bioengineering, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA
- Department of Genome Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA
- eScience Institute, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA
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Sarmiento KR, Carr A, Diener C, Locey KJ, Gibbons SM. Island biogeography theory and the gut: why taller people tend to harbor more diverse gut microbiomes. bioRxiv 2023:2023.08.08.552554. [PMID: 37609334 PMCID: PMC10441360 DOI: 10.1101/2023.08.08.552554] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 08/24/2023]
Abstract
Prior work has shown a positive scaling relationship between vertebrate body size and gut microbiome alpha-diversity. This observation mirrors commonly observed species area relationships (SAR) in many other ecosystems. Here, we show a similar scaling relationship between human height and gut microbiome alpha-diversity across two large, independent cohorts, controlling for a wide range of relevant covariates, such as body mass index, age, sex, and bowel movement frequency. Island Biogeography Theory (IBT), which predicts that larger islands tend to harbor greater species diversity through neutral demographic processes, provides a simple mechanism for these positive SARs. Using an individual-based model of IBT adapted to the gut, we demonstrate that increasing the length of a flow-through ecosystem is associated with increased species diversity. We delve into the possible clinical implications of these SARs in the American Gut Cohort. Consistent with prior observations that lower alpha-diversity is a risk factor for Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI), we found that individuals who reported a history of CDI were shorter than those who did not and that this relationship appeared to be mediated by alpha-diversity. We also observed that vegetable consumption mitigated this risk increase, also by mediation through alpha-diversity. In summary, we find that body size and gut microbiome diversity show a robust positive association, that this macroecological scaling relationship is related to CDI risk, and that greater vegetable intake can mitigate this effect.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Alex Carr
- Institute for Systems Biology, Seattle, WA 98109, USA
- Molecular Engineering Graduate Program, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA
| | | | - Kenneth J. Locey
- Center for Quality, Safety & Value Analytics, Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, IL 60612, USA
| | - Sean M. Gibbons
- Institute for Systems Biology, Seattle, WA 98109, USA
- Molecular Engineering Graduate Program, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA
- Department of Biological Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA
- Department of Genome Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA
- eScience Institute, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA
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