Interplay between the human gut microbiome and host metabolism

TY - JOUR

T1 - Interplay between the human gut microbiome and host metabolism

AU - Visconti, Alessia

AU - Le Roy, Caroline I

AU - Rosa, Fabio

AU - Martin, Tiphaine C

AU - Mohney, Robert P.

AU - Weizhong, Li

AU - de Rinaldis, Emanuele

AU - Bell, Jordana T

AU - Venter, J Craig

AU - Nelson, Karen E

AU - Spector, Tim D

AU - Falchi, Mario

PY - 2019/10/3

Y1 - 2019/10/3

N2 - The human gut is inhabited by a complex and metabolically active microbial ecosystem. While many studies focused on the effect of individual microbial taxa on human health, their overall metabolic potential has been under-explored. Using whole-metagenome shotgun sequencing data in 1,004 twins, we first observed that unrelated subjects share, on average, almost double the number of metabolic pathways (82%) than species (43%). Then, using 673 blood and 713 faecal metabolites, we found metabolic pathways to be associated with 34% of blood and 95% of faecal metabolites, with over 18,000 significant associations, while species showed less than 3,000 associations. Finally, we estimated that the microbiome was involved in a dialogue between 71% of faecal, and 15% of blood, metabolites. This study underlines the importance of studying the microbial metabolic potential rather than focusing purely on taxonomy to find therapeutic and diagnostic targets, and provides a unique resource describing the interplay between the microbiome and the systemic and faecal metabolic environments.

AB - The human gut is inhabited by a complex and metabolically active microbial ecosystem. While many studies focused on the effect of individual microbial taxa on human health, their overall metabolic potential has been under-explored. Using whole-metagenome shotgun sequencing data in 1,004 twins, we first observed that unrelated subjects share, on average, almost double the number of metabolic pathways (82%) than species (43%). Then, using 673 blood and 713 faecal metabolites, we found metabolic pathways to be associated with 34% of blood and 95% of faecal metabolites, with over 18,000 significant associations, while species showed less than 3,000 associations. Finally, we estimated that the microbiome was involved in a dialogue between 71% of faecal, and 15% of blood, metabolites. This study underlines the importance of studying the microbial metabolic potential rather than focusing purely on taxonomy to find therapeutic and diagnostic targets, and provides a unique resource describing the interplay between the microbiome and the systemic and faecal metabolic environments.

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85072909752&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-12476-z

DO - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-12476-z

M3 - Article

SN - 2041-1723

VL - 10

JO - Nature Communications

JF - Nature Communications

IS - 1

M1 - 4505

ER -