Project description
When good bacteria in your intestine go rogue
The human intestine is home to a huge variety of microorganisms, called the intestinal microbiota. These are critical to keeping our immune and metabolic systems functioning properly. Sometimes our bacteria turn against us due to instigators such as emulsifiers found in certain foods. These additives may cause some bacteria in our microbiota to invade the mucous layer lining the intestine. Over the long-term, this could lead to the development of cardiovascular disease. The EU-funded INVADERS project is profiling these invaders. Confirming the link between intestinal traitors and metabolic conditions could lead to simple therapeutic interventions with far-reaching impact on obesity, diabetes, and liver and cardiovascular diseases.
Objective
Mucus-Penetrating Microbiota: Characterization, Mechanism and Therapeutic in Metabolic Disease
Humanity is facing an epidemic of inter-related metabolic disorders, including obesity, insulin resistance, hyperglycemia, hyperlipidemia, and hepatic steatosis, that altogether have major impact on the promotion of cardiovascular diseases. The increasing incidence of these complex metabolic disorders and their highly morbid, chronic and costly downstream diseases threatens to overwhelm the world’s health care systems and economies, making it a top public health priority in dire need of investigation.
The intestinal tract is inhabited by a large and diverse community of bacteria, collectively referred to as the intestinal microbiota. When stably maintained at an appropriately safe distance from the epithelial cell monolayer, the microbiota provides important benefits to its host. However, disturbance of the microbiota-host relationship, promoted by genetic or non-genetic factors, can alter intestinal homeostasis and drive chronic low-grade intestinal inflammation, ultimately leading to metabolic abnormalities. We previously reported that a ubiquitous class of food additives, emulsifiers, detrimentally impact the microbiota resulting in its encroachment into the mucus layer that associated with low-grade inflammation and development of metabolic disorders.
The central goal of this proposal is to investigate the hypothesis that bacteria that penetrate the inner part of the mucus layer, referred as invaders, promote development of metabolic alterations.
We herein propose to identify mucus-invaders, in preclinical models and clinical conditions, and investigate mechanisms by which they promote inflammatory and metabolic abnormalities. Furthermore, we propose to define original approaches to modulate the intestinal microbiota in order to counteract microbiota encroachment and protect against associated metabolic abnormalities.
Fields of science
Not validated
Not validated
- medical and health scienceshealth sciencespublic health
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesmicrobiologybacteriology
- medical and health sciencesclinical medicinecardiologycardiovascular diseases
- medical and health sciencesbasic medicinephysiologyhomeostasis
- medical and health scienceshealth sciencesnutritionobesity
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Funding Scheme
ERC-STG - Starting GrantHost institution
75654 Paris
France