Natures wonders: gut microbiome pathogen controls (Introduction)

by David Turell , Friday, December 15, 2023, 16:14 (134 days ago) @ David Turell

Starve them:

https://www.sciencemagazinedigital.org/sciencemagazine/library/item/15_december_2023/41...

"A vital role of the gut microbiota is to defend the host from infection with pathogens through a process called colonization resistance. For example, mice raised without a microbiota are viable in their sterile isolators but rapidly succumb to infection when exposed to the outside world...the authors integrate decades of descriptive studies into a mechanistic understanding of how microbe-microbe interactions influence human health. This could guide the rational design of probiotic communities that confer protection against opportunistic infection.

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"Studies have long hinted at a correlation between microbial community diversity and host health, without a clear explanation as to why (2). Spragge et al. sought to identify the underlying ecological principles behind these observations, rather than focusing on specific bacterial species, which may differ among individuals. Through in silico and in vitro analysis of carbon sources used by individual members of defined microbial consortia, they determined that complex communities confer colonization resistance by depleting all the resources required for growth of an opportunistic pathogen, such as Klebsiella pneumoniae, or a pathogen, such as Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium. The overlap of nutritional requirements was greatest between these pathogens and related species within the microbial consortia, such as Escherichia coli, thus making the latter a keystone species for colonization resistance. However, this keystone species was only important in the context of a diverse community. This suggests that colonization resistance results from complex, “higherorder” effects that occur when interspecies interactions are influenced by the larger microbial community. (my bold)

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"Spragge et al. show that the nutritional requirements for pathogens and probiotic species are often very different, and in cases where competitors share similar nutritional niches, probiotic-pathogen competition is only protective in the context of a diverse community. The authors mined existing repositories of human-derived microbial genomic sequences to identify communities with sequence overlap to relevant pathogens (such as E. coli) and accurately predict species that curb pathogen growth. This suggests that probiotic communities can be tailored to protect patients at high risk of certain infections, for instance, after completing antibiotic therapy in a hospital."

Comment: an amazingly clear study to show how good bacteria work together cooperatively to control pathogenic forms. Note my bold: E. coli, a potential pathogen, is a good guy in this context. I am sure a designing God knew it would all work out in this way.