Dramatic Fluctuations of the Gut Microbiome in Individuals with Inflammatory Bowel Disease
Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) is a group of conditions caused by chronic inflammation in the digestive tract. The most common subtypes of IBD are Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. iHMP researchers are generating a public database containing information collected over time from several studies of IBD patients. Along with a variety of relevant patient data, the database will contain information about both the composition of the gut microbiome over time in these patients as well as the small molecules and proteins being produced by these microbes.
It has been previously established that patients with IBD have large differences in the composition of their gut microbiome compared to heathy individuals. These findings are often based on samples obtained at a single point in time. However, the species that make up our gut microbiome can fluctuate over time based on infections, diet, antibiotics, and other factors. As part of the larger iHMP study on IBD, Dr. Jansen and colleagues determined the composition of the gut microbiomes in over 100 patients with IBD in three month intervals to determine how these microbiomes differs over time. They found that patients with IBD had much less consistency in their microbiomes when compared to healthy individuals. This information could potentially be used by doctors to monitor the health of IBD patients and their response to treatments. In addition, understanding the dynamics of the microbiome in IBD patients should help the design of future therapies that aim to restore the microbiome to a more natural state.
Reference:
Dynamics of the human gut microbiome in inflammatory bowel disease. Halfvarson J, Brislawn CJ, Lamendella R, Vázquez-Baeza Y, Walters WA, Bramer LM, D’Amato M, Bonfiglio F, McDonald D, Gonzalez A, McClure EE, Dunklebarger MF, Knight R, Jansson JK. Nat Microbiol. 2017 Feb 13; 2:17004.
