Metabolomics Reveals Large Effect of Gut Microflora on Host Biochemistry and Subsequent Activation of a Host Response |
Tue 4:00 PM - Session: Metabolomics |
Eric Peters |
Gut microflora (the microbiome) have been show to have a significant impact on human health. Untargeted metabolomics was used to investigate the effect of gut microbes on plasma biochemistry in a mouse model. Plasma from germ free mice was compared with wild type species using a novel combination of metabolomics methods to help broaden the scope of the profiling experiments. More than 100 plasma features were unique to wild type species, presumably resulting from bacterial metabolism. Additionally, at least ten percent of all shared features were seen to change in intensity by factors greater than 1.5-fold.
Three major effects of the microbiome were observed:
These studies hint at the surprisingly large effect of the gut microbiome on plasma biochemistry, the overlap between bacterial and mammalian metabolism, and the fuzzy line between endogenous and exogenous. |