Can we use bacteriocins to improve gut health?

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Many bacteria produce antimicrobial compounds to help them compete in mixed communities. Antimicrobial peptides called bacteriocins from food and dairy strains have already been exploited successfully to prevent food poisoning or mastitis. Gene clusters producing these bacteriocins are increasingly being discovered in gut bacteria or gastrointestinal metagenomes. The gut microbiome is known to play a critical role in our health and disease and has been associated with obesity, diabetes, colon cancers and the development of cognitive disorders via the gut-brain-axis. We want to determine whether bacteriocins have the potential to modulate the complex human gut microbiome and provide a novel approach to shape microbiomes towards a healthy outcome. This project will build on past and current projects on bacteriocin discovery, in vitro colon model fermentations and gut microbiome and metabolome analysis to investigate bacteriocin expression in gut conditions and the effect on the composition and function of the microbiota of both healthy and patients with gastrointestinal disorders.