News Release

Rich or poor in gut bacteria brings new vision for obesity treatment

Peer-Reviewed Publication

BGI Shenzhen

Shenzhen, China -- The MetaHIT consortium, comprised of Institute National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA), University of Copenhagen, BGI, and other institutes, has investigated the gut microbial composition in a cohort of 123 non-obese and 169 obese Danish individuals. This study showed for the first time that 2 groups of individuals can be distinguished in the population by the richness of gut microbiota. The latest results were published online in Nature today.

Obesity, known as "the modem civilized disease", is a leading preventable cause of death worldwide that increases the likelihood of various diseases, particularly heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and others. It's reported that the obesity epidemic will affect more than 700 million in 2015 and will continue to grow. Each of our guts is colonized by more than 3 pounds of microorganisms. More and more data show that our "other" genome, the microbiome, may have greater consequences on the onset of obesity.

In this study, researchers analyzed the gut bacterial composition of 292 Danish adults by a new analytical approach called quantitative metagenomics. They found two groups of individuals that differ by the number of gut microbial genes and thus gut bacterial richness. A quarter of the cohort is "poor" in bacteria (low bacterial richness), whereas the rest is "rich" (high bacterial richness); Low richness individuals included a significantly higher proportion of obese participants and were as a group characterized by a more marked adiposity.

Their further efforts showed that the low richness microbiota contains higher proportion of pro-inflammatory and lower proportion of anti-inflammatory bacterial species than the high richness one. The two groups of individuals could be almost perfect stratified with very few bacteria, suggesting that simple molecular diagnostic tests, based upon the gut microbiome, can be developed to identify individuals at risk of common morbidities.

When comparing the two groups, they discovered that people with a low richness microbiota have more body fat and less healthy; they are more resistant to the action of insulin, have unfavorably altered blood lipids and show increased blood levels of inflammation markers and white blood cells, bringing them at increased risk of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disorders.

Interestingly, researchers also observed that obese people from the low richness group gained on average significantly more weight than the high richness one during the past nine years. Eight particular bacterial species were identified based on their possible protective role against weight gain. These findings could lead to the development of new medical therapies for fighting against weight gain.

Obesity is a major contributor to some of the leading causes of death, and lead to a global metabolic health crisis. The work here provides a solid evidence that studies of alterations in the "other" genome may define subsets of adult individuals with different metabolic risk profiles and thereby contribute to the development of stratified approaches for treatment and prevention of widespread obesity, heart disease, stroke, diabetes and some types of cancer associated with it.

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About BGI

BGI was founded in 1999 with the mission of being a premier scientific partner to the global research community. The goal of BGI is to make leading-edge genomic science highly accessible through its investment in infrastructure that leverages the best available technology, economies of scale, and expert bioinformatics resources. BGI, which includes both private non-profit genomic research institutes and sequencing application commercial units, and its affiliates, BGI Americas, headquartered in Cambridge, MA, and BGI Europe, headquartered in Copenhagen, Denmark, have established partnerships and collaborations with leading academic and government research institutions as well as global biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies, supporting a variety of disease, agricultural, environmental, and related applications.

BGI has established a proven track record of excellence, delivering results with high efficiency and accuracy for innovative, high-profile research which has generated over 250 publications in top-tier journals such as Nature and Science. These accomplishments include sequencing one percent of the human genome for the International Human Genome Project, contributing 10 percent to the International Human HapMap Project, carrying out research to combat SARS and German deadly E. coli, playing a key role in the Sino-British Chicken Genome Project, and completing the sequence of the rice genome, the silkworm genome, the first Asian diploid genome, the potato genome, and, most recently, have sequenced the human Gut metagenome, and a significant proportion of the genomes for 1,000 genomes. For more information about BGI please visit http://www.genomics.cn.

Contact Information:

Bicheng Yang, Ph.D.
Public Communication Officer BGI
+86-755-82639701
yangbicheng@genomics.cn
http://www.genomics.cn


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