The human microbiome is closely related to prediabetes, inflammatory bowel disease and preterm delivery

Picture from nature, 2019, doi:10.1038/s41586-019-1236-x 。< br / > today, three new studies - two in nature and one in Nature Medicine - link microbiome composition to type 2 diabetes, pregnancy and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD)Each study included data from thousands of blood samples, living tissue samples, and microbial swabs collected repeatedly over a long period of time from patients< br / > Curtis huttenhower, a computational biologist at Harvard University and a corresponding author of IBD research, said that the main findings of the three studies were "everything is interrelatedIt's all changing, and when microbes change, you can see people react, and vice versa< br / > prediabetes and infections < br / > one of the studies hit the hard spot of Michael Snyder, a geneticist at Stanford UniversityWhen he was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, he focused his research on the diseaseMany patients, such as Snyder, have been diagnosed with diabetes after being infected with the virus, but scientists don't understand the link between infection and insulinHe and his team want to know if people with diabetes or prediabetes respond differently to infection than those with healthy insulin function< br / > they tracked 106 participants over four years (83 of whom agreed to open their data access)Half of the participants had prediabetes, a condition of elevated blood sugar levels that did not fully reach the level of type 2 diabetesWhen the patients said they were healthy (did not experience acute disease), the researchers collected blood, feces and nasal samples every three monthsThey used these samples to monitor blood sugar in these patients and sequenced their deep genomes to characterize the composition of the intestinal microbiome and to observe changes over time"We sequenced the genome, transcriptome, protein and metabolome from the host," Snyder told scientistsObviously, the same is true for the microbiome" < br / > if these patients report that they are ill, vaccinated, gaining weight or experiencing other significant life stress (such as colonoscopy), then the researchers asked them to provide samples more frequentlyDuring the study period, 32 patients had respiratory tract infections < br / > they found that patients with prediabetes or dysfunctional insulin receptor signaling had impaired and delayed responses to respiratory virus infection, which they believed could lead to prolonged low levels of inflammation, known to aggravate diseases such as diabetes Compared with patients with healthy insulin receptor signal transduction, the nasal and intestinal microbiome of patients with impaired insulin receptor signal transduction had different changes in response to this infection < br / > more importantly, the difference of microbial composition between people is greater than that between people when they are sick or healthy Snyder said it means "it's very important to record a person's personal data when he is healthy so that you can see any changes as soon as possible when he is ill." < br / > inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) < br / > in the second study, huttenhower and his colleagues found similar specific phenomena in their IBD patient samples "The exact way this disease happens varies from person to person," he said One of the surprising results is that everyone is so different " The < br / > huttenhower team followed up 132 patients, each for one year The patients used home collection kits and mailed fecal samples to the researchers every two weeks The team also analyzed the patients' quarterly blood samples and biopsies from colonoscopies < br / > IBD is an autoimmune disease, but these samples show that it's not just immune system damage The known biomarkers of Crohn's disease and colitis (two types of IBD) are antibodies in the blood, but these antibodies only exist when there are changes in the intestinal microbiome < br / > huttenhower said, "this is not just the destruction of the immune system during Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis, especially during disease activity When there are microbial and biochemical changes in the gut, you can also see that you can also see the immune system respond to changes in the body's antibodies " < br / > pregnancy and preterm delivery < br / > the third study did not track disease, but rather changes in the microbial diversity associated with pregnancy - particularly those that ended in preterm delivery < br / > scientists have made great progress in caring for premature babies after birth, but still can't predict when premature babies may be born < br / > in the United States, African American women are more likely than any other women to give birth prematurely To better understand this problem in this population, Greg buck, a microbiologist and immunologist at the Federal University of Virginia, and his team analyzed a sample of 1527 women who participated in the multi omic microbiome study pregnancy Initiative (moms-pi) The majority of this group of pregnant women are African Americans, with 45 women giving birth prematurely (defined as pregnancy lasting less than 37 weeks) and 95 women giving birth at full term < br / > Buck said, "the question is whether we can identify any microbiological or multinomial characteristics that will allow us to understand how to predict the risk of premature birth or the mechanism by which bacteria [cause premature birth]." The < br / > buck team collected samples of the women's vaginal microbiome during each appointment throughout their pregnancy Like other studies, they studied these samples with reference to other parts of the body, while collecting samples of cord blood and placental tissue at the time of delivery, as well as other microbial samples The < br / > buck team identified some bacterial groups associated with preterm delivery Most surprising, says buck, is that these signals seem to be greatest early in pregnancy, not near childbirth Previous studies have shown that in the first three months of pregnancy, the vaginal microbiome is very diverse, but throughout pregnancy, this diversity will decrease, and the microbial community will become dominated by lactobacilli In this new study, the potential for premature birth disappeared as microbial diversity decreased < br / > David Sela, a nutrition microbiologist at the University of Massachusetts, who was not involved in the new study, will call the study "scalable" and "well performed," adding that the identification of microorganisms associated with preterm birth may one day help people develop pre intervention measures < br / > however, buck and his colleagues have so far been unprepared to boldly claim that they can predict which pregnant women will give birth prematurely At present, it is not clear how practical the large-scale ihmp scientific research will be < br / > Gregor Reid, a microbiologist and immunologist at the University of Western Ontario, Canada, who was not involved in any of the three studies, said, "we don't know whether these microbiome studies have high impact or are just expensive related studies until they produce feasible results and are verified... we don't need to just track others, It's about testing interventions " < br / > reference materials: < br / > W Zhou et al Digital multi-omics of host - micro dynamics in pre dialogues Nature, 2019, doi:10.1038/s41586-019-1236-x J Lloyd-Price et al Multi-omics of the gut microbial ecosystem in inflammatory bowel diseases Nature, 2019, doi:10.1038/s41586-019-1237-9 J Fettweis et al The vaginal microbiome and preterm birth Nature Medicine, 2019, doi:10.1038/s41591-019-0450-2.