NEW RESEARCH RESULTS: The gut microbiota modulates host energy and lipid metabolism

Monday, 25 January 2010 18:39

The total number of bacteria in the adult human exceeds the total number of human cells by about 10 fold, and the vast majority live in the human intestine.

These gut microbiota play an important physiological role. Unlike foreign infectious microorganisms, these bacteria have evolved extraordinary capabilities that are vital to human health e.g. the production of vitamins and xenobiotic metabolism.

Knowledge on how microbes affect the host energy and lipid metabolism is limited. In particular there is a lack of understanding how the gut microbiota affects the systemic lipid metabolism and cross-talk between metabolically important organs such as adipose tissue and liver. Thus a systemic multi-tissue approach is required to elucidate the role of gut microbiota in its regulation of systemic lipid metabolism.

In the study carried out by researchers from Gothenburg University and VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, and supported by the projects from the Human Frontier Science Program and EU FP7 ETHERPATHS, state-of-the-art lipidomics was applied on serum, liver and white adipose tissue from conventionally raised and germ-free mice to investigate how the gut microbiota affects systemic lipid metabolism.

The findings show that serum levels of cholesteryl esters, sphingomyelins, and phosphatidylcholines were increased in fasting conventionally raised mice, whereas triglyceride levels were decreased. By establishing that the decrease of triglycerides was due to reduction of chylomicrons and not VLDL (very low density lipoprotein), and that chylomicrons were also decreased after the lipid bolus administration at 4h but not 1h, the researchers were able to show that diminishment of triglycerides in conventionally raised mice is due to increased triglyceride clearance and not due to altered lipid absorption as one would have expected.

Taken together, the findings demonstrate that the gut microbiota affects several classes of lipids in circulation as well as in metabolically important organs, and could be an important factor for the development of metabolic diseases by modulating lipid metabolism.

Reference

Velagapudi, V. R., Hezaveh, R., Reigstad, C. S., Gopalacharyulu, P. V., Yetukuri, L., Islam, S., Felin, J., Perkins, R., Borén, J., Orešič, M., Backhed, F. The gut microbiota modulates host energy and lipid metabolism in mice, J. Lipid Res. (2010). doi:10.1194/jlr.M002774

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