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 Research Briefing Notes

 Gut health: friendly gut bacteria & inflammatory response

Context of research

Inflammatory bowel diseases (Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis)are increasing dramatically in the Western world and greatly contribute to the risk of developing colorectal cancer.

crohns_diseaseCrohn's disease

uc_diseaseUlcerative Colitis

What problem is our research addressing?

• We aim to understand the relationship between gut bacteria and gut health.

• To identify bacteria that benefit and promote gut health.

• To define, at a mechanistic level, how bacteria prevent inflammation and disease.

• To translate this information into functional Nutriceuticals and pharmaceutical products.

What research have we carried out on this topic?

We have investigated:

• the microbial diversity in healthy and diseased conditions.
• the prevalent groups in the human gut that may prevent gut inflammation.
• new anti-inflammatory mechanisms.
• Assessed changes in the genome of both bacteria and human gut cells as a means of identifying potentially new probiotics
and therapeutics (anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer).

What are the key findings of this research?


• Human gut bacteria can prevent inflammation triggered by pathogenic bacteria and other noxious agents.
• Novel anti-inflammatory pathways have been defined that provide avenues for new drug strategies for treating IBD.
• Bacterial genomes can be used to identify important gene products that may have therapeutic relevance for the treatment of human inflammatory diseases

Roseburia
intestinalis hominus

Firmicutes

gut_bugs

Bacteroides
thetaiotaomicron

Bacteroidetes

What are the potential deliverables from this research?

  • Identification of bacteria that promote gut health and prevent inflammatory bowel disease and colorectal cancer.

  • Development of novel foods that promote beneficial bacteria.

  • Through pharmaceutical links, development of novel drug therapies for the treatment of IBD and CRC

Key References

1. Kelly, D., Campbell, J.I., King, T.P., Grant, G., Jansson, E.A., Coutts, A.G.P., Pettersson, S. and Conway, S. (2004). Commensal anaerobic gut bacteria attenuate inflammation by regulating nuclear-cytoplasmic shuttling of PPARγ and RelA. Nature Immunology 5, 104-112.

2. Kelly, D., Conway, S. & Aminov R (2005) Commensal gut bacteria: mechanisms of immune modulation. Trends in Immunol. 26, 326-333.

3. Kumar VM, Wu, H., Jones R., Grant, G. Babbin B., King T.P. Kelly, D. (2006) PAMPs as avirulence factors: flagellin suppresses epithelial apoptosis and limits disease during enteric infection. American Journal of Pathology (In Press)

Download pdf version of this research

Contact details for Dr. Denise Kelly

Email:D.Kelly@rowett.ac.uk

Telephone:+44 (0)1224 712751 ext: 6648


Rowett Research Institute 2005