8 Tuo of poo that has passed through a thousand years, let Harvard scientists find clues to cure diabetes Nature

Mingmin sent a report from the concave temple qubit | public account QbitAI, you may not have imagined that a few lumps of poo can be so valuable
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Recently, "Nature" published a paper on ancient human feces, which provided new clues for the study of type 1 diabetes, obesity and other diseases
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Scientists from Harvard Medical School used 8 ancient human feces from 1000 to 2000 years ago to reconstruct the gut microbial genome of ancient humans
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From the genomic information, they found that the human intestinal microbial community has undergone tremendous changes in the past 2000 years! 39% of ancient microbial species in ancient dung samples cannot be found in modern human bodies
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Moreover, modern human feces contain more genes related to antibiotic resistance and degradation of mucus in the digestive tract
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Scientists say that these changes can reflect the prevalence of industrialized life>
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This research is too strong.
Why study the feces of the ancients? Because scientists have discovered that the diversity of intestinal flora has been severely lost after modern people enter the industrialized life
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The intestinal flora plays an important role in human metabolism and immunity, which to a certain extent makes people more susceptible to chronic diseases, such as diabetes
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In order to carry out research on these chronic diseases, it is particularly important to find more abundant intestinal flora
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As a result, scientists focused on the poo that has traveled through the millennium
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However, it is not easy to study the poo with such a long history
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Scientists found 15 ancient dung samples from caves in Utah and Northern Mexico.
After using shotgun metagenomic sequencing, identification and screening, 8 samples of excellent quality were left as samples for this experiment
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According to the researchers, these ancient dung is very well preserved in the cave, and even looks no different from ordinary poop, just a little bit more dry
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Using these 8 samples, the researchers reconstructed 498 microbial genomes
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But these genomes are still not pure enough, they are still mixed with the DNA of other microorganisms mixed in from the soil and the air
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Therefore, researchers have to perform another round of screening based on criteria such as completeness and contamination
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In the end, they determined that 181 of the genomes were derived from ancient human feces
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At the same time, the researchers also collected 789 modern human fecal samples from industrialized and non-industrialized areas of 8 countries as a comparison
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The results of the comparison show that 39% of the ancient dung samples have unseen ancient microbial species
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In other words, the human gut microbial genome has undergone significant changes in the past 2000 years
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Take a bacterium called Treponema succinifaciens as an example.
Eight ancient fecal samples contained this bacterium, but no trace of it was seen in samples of modern people in industrial areas
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One of the researchers, Aleksandar Kostic, believes that this may be due to the fact that ancient people ingested more types of food, and the intestinal microflora that coexisted with people were also more abundant
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On the contrary, people entering industrialization consume too much processed food, resulting in a single nutritional structure, and the diversity of intestinal microbiota will also decrease
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△The composition of ancient fecal samples is similar to that of modern non-industrial individuals.
The study also found that compared with samples from industrialized areas, non-industrialized areas have intestinal microbiomes that are closer to ancient fecal samples
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This allows the reconstructed genome of ancient fecal samples to be helpful to the study of type 1 diabetes
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Researcher Aleksandar Kostic is also a researcher at the Jocelyn Diabetes Center.
A previous study of children in Finland and Russia showed that the gut microbiota of children in industrialized and non-industrialized areas is very different, and children living in industrialized areas More likely to develop type 1 diabetes
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In this way, the more diverse ancient fecal sample genome provides some clues for the study of diabetes
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In recent years, the research on intestinal flora has been a hot spot
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There are 10 trillion bacteria in the human intestines, which can affect body weight and digestion, resist the risk of infection and autoimmune diseases, and control the body's response to cancer treatment drugs
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Fecal transplantation (FMT), as a clinical therapy that can rebuild the intestinal flora, has always attracted attention.
Previously, FMT has been successfully used to treat recurrent Clostridium difficile infections
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In 2019, Gil Sharon and others at the California Institute of Technology published a research article titled "Human Gut Microbiota from Autism Spectrum Disorder Promote Behavioral Symptoms in Mice" on "Cell", which provides a solution for the treatment of typical neurological diseases such as autism.
New ideas
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The researchers isolated and cultivated functional bacteria from the feces of children with autism and ordinary children
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Then they were transplanted into the intestines of mice to create a anthropomorphic intestinal microenvironment in the animals
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Team introduction Meradeth Snow: researcher at the University of Montana and associate professor of anthropology at the University of Michigan (UM).
His main research direction is ancient DNA in human genetics
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Aleksandar Kostic: Harvard Medical School & Jocelyn Diabetes Center, Assistant Professor
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Previously, a new mechanism by which the human microbiome directly affects immune development and the progression of type 1 diabetes has been discovered
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Reference link: [1]https:// 3]https://scitechdaily.
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