With more than 1,000 different bacterial species, the gut microbiome is now thought of by many researchers to be the key to unlocking disease-fighting superpowers. It’s already been linked to cancer, diabetes, multiple sclerosis and even memory and personality. Yet there’s still so much we are yet to discover about this microscopic universe in our bodies and how to harness it properly for disease prevention and treatment.
Now, new research out of the Hudson Institute of Medical Research, in collaboration with scientists at the Institute for Systems Biology in the US and Monash University in Australia, has identified a way to determine which species in the gut are most important and how their interactions impact health of both the microbiome and broader biology, and paves the way for new developments in treating a broad range of health conditions including inflammatory bowel disease, infection, autoimmune diseases and cancers.
"There are roughly 1,000 different bacterial species in a healthy gut – it's a microscopic multicultural community with over a trillion individual members," said Samuel Forster, associate professor at Hudson Institute. "Bacteria in our microbiomes exist as communities that rely on each other to produce and share key nutrients between them.”
The researchers say that through their work on computational models to study the complex microbial population, it will be possible to not just understand the makeup and interactions, but how they work to influence the body around them.
"We have developed a new computational way to understand these dependencies and their role in shaping our microbiome,” Forster said. “This new method unlocks our understanding of the gut microbiome and provides a foundation for new treatment options that selectively remodel microbial communities."
An example of this is Crohn’s Disease, which the team confirmed is connected to hydrogen sulfide in the microbiome. The researchers found that, contrary to previous studies, the disease is triggered by a loss of bacteria that use hydrogen sulfide, rather than an increase in species producing it.
Forster and his team have a long-standing relationship with Adelaide-based biotechnology company BiomeBank, which is working on new ways to treat and prevent disease by restoring gut microbial ecology.
"Through the partnership between the Hudson Institute of Medical Research and BiomeBank, these insights into community structure will provide the opportunity for targeted intervention with rationally selected combinations of microbes," Forster said.
Using a computational approach to study microbial communities may be the key step in understanding how the complex relationships in the population can be targeted for far-reaching health interventions.
"This is a significant step in the development of complex microbial therapies," said lead author Vanessa Marcelino. "This approach allows us to identify and rank the key interactions between bacteria and use this knowledge to predict targeted ways to change the community."
The team is now working with biotechnology company BiomeBank, in order to take their findings and put them into practice, finding new ways to treat and prevent disease with gut microbiome ecology.
"Through the partnership between the Hudson Institute of Medical Research and BiomeBank, these insights into community structure will provide the opportunity for targeted intervention with rationally selected combinations of microbes," Forster said.
The study was published in the journal Nature Communications.