Biotechniques
have an interesting
article
about the gut microbiome, the Human Microbiome Project and the role that the
microbiome plays in human evolution.
Here
is an extract:
“Scientists
have unearthed the fact that drastic differences in microbiomes can be
inherited and that they can irreversibly meddle with metabolic processes. The
high-fat, high-salt diet that characterizes the economic West and the overuse
of antibiotics around the world have reshaped our microbiota.
If
this recent divergence in our microbiomes has significantly contributed to the
alarming increase in incidence of chronic diseases such as Crohn’s disease and
type 2 diabetes, Justin Sonnenburg, Associate Professor of Microbiology and
Immunology at Stanford predicts that it will inevitably affect our evolution.
“If you were to go thousands of years into the future, I would guess that you
would see that there will be a [genetic] bottleneck, and you’ll lose some of
the pro-inflammatory alleles just because kids that are getting childhood
Crohn’s disease for instance are going to be less reproductively fit.”
Here
are some related academic papers of interest:
Round JL, Mazmanian SK.
The gut microbiome shapes intestinal immune responses during health and
disease. 2009. Nat Rev Immunol. 9(5): 313– 323.
Lim ES, Wang D, Holtz LR.
The Bacterial Microbiome and Virome Milestones of Infant Development. The
Bacterial Microbiome and Virome Milestones of Infant Development. 2016. Trends
Microbiol. pii: S0966-842X(16)30064-6
Sonnenburg JL, Bäckhed F.
Diet–microbiota interactions as moderators of human metabolism. 2016. Nature.
535(7610):56-64.
Diaz Heijtz R et al.
Normal gut microbiota modulates brain development and behavior. 2011. Proc Natl
Acad Sci U S A. 108(7):3047-52.
Moeller AH et al. Cospeciation
of gut microbiota with hominids. 2016. Science. 353(6297): 380-2.
Posted by Dr. Tim Sandle