European badgers' gut bacteria may be a powerful ally in the fight against tuberculosis

Date:  October 4, 2018

Source:  Morris Animal Foundation

What do cattle, European badgers, and gut bacteria have in common? They are all central players in a complex web surrounding a disease that affects multiple species, often with devastating results -- tuberculosis. Now, new research funded by Morris Animal Foundation is shedding light on how one player, gut bacteria, may help protect both badgers and cattle from this common, pervasive and deadly illness.

A major outbreak of bovine tuberculosis is significantly impacting agriculture in the United Kingdom. Badgers are known carriers of Mycobacterium bovis (the bacteria that causes tuberculosis in cattle) and are suspected to be a source of disease spread. The use of the human tuberculosis vaccine, Bacillus Calmette-Guerin, in badgers was considered to be a humane and long-term solution to reduce TB spillover from badgers but was falling short on effectiveness.

Dr. Jorge Gutierrez, University of Surrey researcher and lead author of the paper, wanted to know why and wondered if both the reason for this shortfall and its solution could be found in the gut bacteria of badgers.

The team, along with collaborators at the UK's Animal and Plant Health Agency, found gut bacteria from badgers may be decreasing the effectiveness of the BCG vaccine, but at the same time may be killing off M. bovis. It's a bad news/good news scenario that may help improve tuberculosis prevention. The team's findings recently were published in BMC Microbiology.

Some natural gut bacteria produce substances that can kill off their competitors or make the gut a hostile place for them. Dr. Gutierrez wondered if this might be going on in the badger gut too. His team isolated several types of natural gut bacteria, specifically lactic acid bacteria, from the feces of badgers. They found some of these bacteria kill off the BCG vaccine, which could reduce its effectiveness in this species. But with this finding, there is good news, too.

Read more  

Social bees have kept their gut microbes for 80 million years

March 29, 2017

About 80 million years ago, a group of bees began exhibiting social behavior, which includes raising young together, sharing food resources and defending their colony. Today, their descendants—honey bees, stingless bees and bumble bees—carry stowaways from their ancient ancestors: five species of gut bacteria that have evolved along with the host bees.

These bacteria, living in the guts of social bees, have been passed from generation to generation for 80 million years, according to a new study published today in the journal Science Advances and led by researchers at The University of Texas at Austin. The finding adds to the case that social creatures, like bees and humans, not only transfer bacteria among one another in their own lifetime—they have a distinctive relationship with bacteria over time, in some cases even evolving on parallel tracks as species.

"The fact that these bacteria have been with the bees for so long says that they are a key part of the biology of social bees," says Nancy Moran, a professor of integrative biology at the university who co-led the research with postdoctoral researcher Waldan Kwong. "And it suggests that disrupting the microbiome, through antibiotics or other kinds of stress, could cause health problems."

Most insects, including nonsocial bees, don't have specialized gut microbes. Because they have limited physical contact with individuals of their own species, they tend to get their microbes from their environment. Social bees, on the other hand, spend much time in close contact with one another in the hive, making it easy to transfer gut microbes from individual to individual.

"Having a social lifestyle enabled the specialized community of bacteria to diversify along with the bees through deep time," says Moran.

Read more at:

Monkeys in zoos have human gut bacteria

Date: August 30, 2016

Source: University of Minnesota College of Science and Engineering

A new study led by the University of Minnesota shows that monkeys in captivity lose much of their native gut bacteria diversity and their gut bacteria ends up resembling those of humans. The results suggest that switching to a low-fiber, Western diet may have the power to deplete most normal primate gut microbes in favor of a less diverse set of bacteria.

The study was published in the most recent issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

The microbiome (or gut bacteria) has been tied to a wide variety of medical conditions from autism to obesity. The lack of fiber in modern Western diets is often thought to cause harmful perturbations to the human gut microbiome. However, the causes and consequences of how the gut bacteria of humans changes as societies become modernized and westernized is still a mystery because there are too many variables when studying humans.

To better understand how changes in diet, lifestyle, and exposure to modern medicine affect primates' guts, a team of researchers led by University of Minnesota computer science and engineering professor Dan Knights, veterinary medicine professor Tim Johnson, and veterinary medicine Ph.D. student Jonathan Clayton, used DNA sequencing to study the gut microbes of multiple non-human primates species in the wild and in captivity as a model for studying the effects of emigration and lifestyle changes.

The researchers studied two different species: the highly endangered red-shanked douc and the mantled howler monkey. The authors then compared the captive primate microbiomes to the microbiomes of their wild counterparts and to those of modern humans living in developing nations and in the United States.

Read more  

Gut bacteria help cabbage fly survive toxins

Date: March 9, 2016

Source: Radboud University

The cabbage fly is a small animal with a big impact. Its larvae infest the roots of cabbage plants, and their family members like rapeseed. Up to fifty percent of yield loss has been reported. With two to three generations a year cabbage fly is a pest to fear. It is an enigma how these animals can withstand the enormous amount of toxins cabbage plants produce.

A complete ecosystem

'As microbiologists we wondered if the gut bacteria had something to do with it,' says Cornelia Welte from Radboud University in the Netherlands. 'In a metagenomics analysis we found a gene coding for an enzyme that performed a special trick: it degrades isothiocyanates, cabbage toxins, into harmless pieces. We isolated the enzyme and put it in a test-tube with isothiocyanates -- and they disappear...

Read more ...

High-Protein Diet Not So Good for Kitty's Belly, Study Suggests

Your kitten may prefer dining on chicken and salmon, but a high-protein diet may not be the best option for Fluffykins, at least if gut bacteria are any indication. Kittens fed a high-protein, low-carb diet have lower levels of helpful gut bacteria than those fed a more balanced ratio of nutrients, according to a new study. 

Many new cat foods claim they are tailored to the feline's carnivorous nature.

"There are a lot of diets now, all natural, that have high protein and fat and not much dietary fiber or carbohydrates," said study co-author and University of Illinois researcher Kelly Swanson in a press release.

But it isn't clear that high-protein diets are actually good for cats.

Continued:  http://www.livescience.com/24174-high-protein-cat-diet.html

Our Microbes, Ourselves: Billions of Bacteria Within, Essential for Immune Function, Are Ours Alone

ScienceDaily (June 21, 2012) — Gut bacteria's key role in immunity is tuned to the host species, researchers have found, suggesting that the superabundant microbes lining our digestive tract evolved with us -- a tantalizing clue in the mysterious recent spike in human autoimmune disorders.

A new study reports that the superabundance of microbial life lining our GI tracts has coevolved with us. These internal bacteria, which are essential for a healthy immune system, are ultimately our evolutionary partners. In other words, humans may have co-evolved with gut bacteria unique to humans, which are not immunologically functional in other mammals.

This study, the first to demonstrate that microbes are specific to their host species, also sheds light on what's called 'the hygiene hypothesis.' According to this idea, living in increasingly hyper-hygienic environments might contribute to recent spikes in childhood allergies, as these beneficial host-specific microbes are hindered by the plethora of antibacterial home products and cleaning chemicals.


Read on:  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120621130643.htm