9
views
0
recommends
+1 Recommend
0 collections
    0
    shares
      • Record: found
      • Abstract: found
      • Article: found
      Is Open Access

      A Cross-Sectional Study of Compositional and Functional Profiles of Gut Microbiota in Sardinian Centenarians

      research-article

      Read this article at

      Bookmark
          There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

          Abstract

          The gut microbiota has been proposed as a promising determinant for human health. Centenarians as a model for extreme aging may help us understand the correlation of gut microbiota with healthy aging and longevity. Here we confirmed that centenarians had microbiota elements usually associated with benefits to health. Our finding of a high capacity of glycolysis and related SCFA production represented a healthy microbiome and environment that is regarded as beneficial for host gut epithelium. The low abundance of genes encoding components of pathways involved in carbohydrate degradation was also found in the gut microbiota of Sardinian centenarians and is often associated with poor gut health. Overall, our study here represents an expansion of previous research investigating the age-related changes in gut microbiota. Furthermore, our study provides a new prospective for potential targets for gut microbiota intervention directed at limiting gut inflammation and pathology and enhancing a healthy gut barrier.

          ABSTRACT

          Sardinia, Italy, has a high prevalence of residents who live more than 100 years. The reasons for longevity in this isolated region are currently unknown. Gut microbiota may hold a clue. To explore the role gut microbiota may play in healthy aging and longevity, we used metagenomic sequencing to determine the compositional and functional differences in gut microbiota associated with populations of different ages in Sardinia. Our data revealed that the gut microbiota of both young and elderly Sardinians shared similar taxonomic and functional profiles. A different pattern was found in centenarians. Within the centenarian group, the gut microbiota was correlated with the functional independence measurement of the host. Centenarians had a higher diversity of core microbiota species and microbial genes than those in the young and elderly. We found that the gut microbiota in Sardinian centenarians displayed a rearranged taxonomic pattern compared with those of the young and elderly, featured by depletion of Faecalibacterium prausnitzii and Eubacterium rectale and enriched for Methanobrevibacter smithii and Bifidobacterium adolescentis. Moreover, functional analysis revealed that the microbiota in centenarians had high capacity for central metabolism, especially glycolysis and fermentation to short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs), although the gut microbiota in centenarians was low in genes encoding enzymes involved in degradation of carbohydrates, including fibers and galactose.

          IMPORTANCE The gut microbiota has been proposed as a promising determinant for human health. Centenarians as a model for extreme aging may help us understand the correlation of gut microbiota with healthy aging and longevity. Here we confirmed that centenarians had microbiota elements usually associated with benefits to health. Our finding of a high capacity of glycolysis and related SCFA production represented a healthy microbiome and environment that is regarded as beneficial for host gut epithelium. The low abundance of genes encoding components of pathways involved in carbohydrate degradation was also found in the gut microbiota of Sardinian centenarians and is often associated with poor gut health. Overall, our study here represents an expansion of previous research investigating the age-related changes in gut microbiota. Furthermore, our study provides a new prospective for potential targets for gut microbiota intervention directed at limiting gut inflammation and pathology and enhancing a healthy gut barrier.

          Related collections

          Most cited references92

          • Record: found
          • Abstract: found
          • Article: found
          Is Open Access

          Fast and accurate short read alignment with Burrows–Wheeler transform

          Motivation: The enormous amount of short reads generated by the new DNA sequencing technologies call for the development of fast and accurate read alignment programs. A first generation of hash table-based methods has been developed, including MAQ, which is accurate, feature rich and fast enough to align short reads from a single individual. However, MAQ does not support gapped alignment for single-end reads, which makes it unsuitable for alignment of longer reads where indels may occur frequently. The speed of MAQ is also a concern when the alignment is scaled up to the resequencing of hundreds of individuals. Results: We implemented Burrows-Wheeler Alignment tool (BWA), a new read alignment package that is based on backward search with Burrows–Wheeler Transform (BWT), to efficiently align short sequencing reads against a large reference sequence such as the human genome, allowing mismatches and gaps. BWA supports both base space reads, e.g. from Illumina sequencing machines, and color space reads from AB SOLiD machines. Evaluations on both simulated and real data suggest that BWA is ∼10–20× faster than MAQ, while achieving similar accuracy. In addition, BWA outputs alignment in the new standard SAM (Sequence Alignment/Map) format. Variant calling and other downstream analyses after the alignment can be achieved with the open source SAMtools software package. Availability: http://maq.sourceforge.net Contact: rd@sanger.ac.uk
            Bookmark
            • Record: found
            • Abstract: found
            • Article: not found

            Diet rapidly and reproducibly alters the human gut microbiome

            Long-term diet influences the structure and activity of the trillions of microorganisms residing in the human gut 1–5 , but it remains unclear how rapidly and reproducibly the human gut microbiome responds to short-term macronutrient change. Here, we show that the short-term consumption of diets composed entirely of animal or plant products alters microbial community structure and overwhelms inter-individual differences in microbial gene expression. The animal-based diet increased the abundance of bile-tolerant microorganisms (Alistipes, Bilophila, and Bacteroides) and decreased the levels of Firmicutes that metabolize dietary plant polysaccharides (Roseburia, Eubacterium rectale, and Ruminococcus bromii). Microbial activity mirrored differences between herbivorous and carnivorous mammals 2 , reflecting trade-offs between carbohydrate and protein fermentation. Foodborne microbes from both diets transiently colonized the gut, including bacteria, fungi, and even viruses. Finally, increases in the abundance and activity of Bilophila wadsworthia on the animal-based diet support a link between dietary fat, bile acids, and the outgrowth of microorganisms capable of triggering inflammatory bowel disease 6 . In concert, these results demonstrate that the gut microbiome can rapidly respond to altered diet, potentially facilitating the diversity of human dietary lifestyles.
              Bookmark
              • Record: found
              • Abstract: found
              • Article: not found

              From Dietary Fiber to Host Physiology: Short-Chain Fatty Acids as Key Bacterial Metabolites.

              A compelling set of links between the composition of the gut microbiota, the host diet, and host physiology has emerged. Do these links reflect cause-and-effect relationships, and what might be their mechanistic basis? A growing body of work implicates microbially produced metabolites as crucial executors of diet-based microbial influence on the host. Here, we will review data supporting the diverse functional roles carried out by a major class of bacterial metabolites, the short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs). SCFAs can directly activate G-coupled-receptors, inhibit histone deacetylases, and serve as energy substrates. They thus affect various physiological processes and may contribute to health and disease.
                Bookmark

                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Role: Editor
                Journal
                mSystems
                mSystems
                msys
                msys
                mSystems
                mSystems
                American Society for Microbiology (1752 N St., N.W., Washington, DC )
                2379-5077
                9 July 2019
                Jul-Aug 2019
                : 4
                : 4
                : e00325-19
                Affiliations
                [a ]Division of Immunology, International Institute of Infection and Immunity, Shantou University Medical College, Shantou, Guangdong, China
                [b ]Department of Biomedical Sciences, University of Sassari, Sassari, Italy
                [c ]Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada
                University of Pennsylvania
                Author notes
                Address correspondence to David J. Kelvin, david.kelvin@ 123456dal.ca , or Ciriaco Carru, carru@ 123456uniss.it .

                D.J.K. and C.C. contributed equally to this work as co-corresponding authors.

                Citation Wu L, Zeng T, Zinellu A, Rubino S, Kelvin DJ, Carru C. 2019. A cross-sectional study of compositional and functional profiles of gut microbiota in Sardinian centenarians. mSystems 4:e00325-19. https://doi.org/10.1128/mSystems.00325-19.

                Author information
                https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0690-5006
                Article
                mSystems00325-19
                10.1128/mSystems.00325-19
                6616150
                31289141
                9614fcc1-718a-4921-8e78-eaac22c2901e
                Copyright © 2019 Wu et al.

                This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.

                History
                : 22 May 2019
                : 18 June 2019
                Page count
                supplementary-material: 10, Figures: 5, Tables: 1, Equations: 0, References: 91, Pages: 18, Words: 12357
                Funding
                Funded by: Canada Research Chairs (Chaires de recherche du Canada), https://doi.org/10.13039/501100001804;
                Award Recipient :
                Funded by: Li Ka Shing Foundation (LKSF), https://doi.org/10.13039/100007421;
                Award Recipient :
                Funded by: Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR), https://doi.org/10.13039/501100004462;
                Award ID: cod. PB05
                Award Recipient :
                Funded by: Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR), https://doi.org/10.13039/501100004462;
                Award ID: cod. PB05
                Award Recipient :
                Funded by: Ministero dell'Istruzione, dell'Università e della Ricerca (MIUR), https://doi.org/10.13039/501100003407;
                Award ID: Prot. 20157ATSLF_002
                Award Recipient :
                Funded by: Ministero dell'Istruzione, dell'Università e della Ricerca (MIUR), https://doi.org/10.13039/501100003407;
                Award ID: Prot. 20157ATSLF_002
                Award Recipient :
                Funded by: Dalhousie Medical Research Foundation (DMRF), https://doi.org/10.13039/100007670;
                Award Recipient :
                Categories
                Research Article
                Host-Microbe Biology
                Editor's Pick
                Custom metadata
                July/August 2019

                centenarian,gut microbiota,longevity,metagenomic sequencing

                Comments

                Comment on this article