Klebsiella

The effect of various treatments for juvenile Crohn’s disease on the microbiome

CT scan showing Crohn's disease in the fundus of the stomach

CT scan showing Crohn's disease in the fundus of the stomach

Crohn’s disease is a type of inflammatory bowel disease that is characterized by an autoimmune response in the colon.  It is generally thought that the bacteria in the gut elicit this immune response and cause the disease.  In otherwords, Crohn’s is caused by a shift in the microbiome from a healthy state, to a dysbiotic one, although the ultimate cause of the disease is still unknown.  The standard of care for Crohn’s in adults is combinations of immunosuppressive drugs, although in children this is not normally recommended.  Instead, children take either a prescribed diet, normally something like Soylent that involves only essential nutrients, or antibiotics.  Scientists from UPenn recently monitored the microbiomes of children with Crohn’s that were put on various courses of treatment, as well as the progression of the disease.  They discovered the changes that occurred in the microbiome that yielded a therapeutic response, and many new associations between the microbiome and Crohn’s disease.  They published their results in Cell Host and Microbe.

The scientists measured the microbiomes and inflammatory markers of 90 children before and after entering therapy for Crohn’s: 52 taking anti-TNF (an immunosuppressant), 22 taking the enteral nutrition exclusively (i.e. something like soylent), and 16 taking the enteral nutrition along with any other food they wanted.  The scientists also took samples from 26 healthy children.  They discovered that of the 45 most abundant bacteria in each child, 14 were different between the Crohn’s children and the healthy children.  These included bacteria such as Prevotella and Odoribacter that were largely absent from the Crohn’s group, and Streptococcus, Klebsiella, and Lactobacillus that were in higher abundances in the diseased group.  Overall diversity was also higher in healthy patients compared to those with Crohn’s.  The researchers also discovered that high levels of fungi, such as Saccharomyces cerevisiae, in the stool were high associated with Crohn’s.  When the researchers monitored the response of Crohn’s patients to treatment they saw that in many patients the microbiome shifted rapidly to a healthier state, with less inflammation, within a week of treatment for all three therapies involved.

This study helped further define the dysbiosis that is associated with Crohn’s disease, as well as demonstrate how this dysbiosis is altered using treatment.  It was especially useful that treatment naïve children were used in the study, as many adult studies are unable to remove confounding variables of various previous courses of treatments.  IBD is a difficult disease to study because of its complexity, but this study supports the hypothesis that a dysbiosis is at the root of the problem.

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The views expressed in the blog are solely those of the author of the blog and not necessarily the American Microbiome Institute or any of our scientists, sponsors, donors, or affiliates.

Understanding the nasal microbiome

Electron micrography of Staphylococcus aureus.

Electron micrography of Staphylococcus aureus.

The nasal microbiome remains largely unstudied despite its potential importance to many diseases, such as rhinosinusitis, allergies, and staph infection (incuding MRSA).  Staphylococcus aureus is probably the most well-known nasal resident, but simple questions, such as which species of bacteria are most prevalent in the nose, are still not answered.  Understanding all the residents of the nasal microbiome, the influence of our genetics and the environment on defining their populations, and the influence each one has on others may be critically important to preventing diseases such as staph infection, and more research is needed.  Fortunately, a new study out of Johns Hopkins that investigated sets of twins shed light on many of these questions, and was published in Science Advances last week.

The scientists sequenced the nasal microbiomes of 46 identical and 43 fraternal pairs of twins.  First, thy learned that these people’s nasal microbiomes could be classified into 7 different phenotypes or community state types (CST) which broadly described their nasal microbiomes.  These 7 types are defined by their most abundant bacteria, and are as follows: CST1 – S. aureus, CST2 - Escherichia spp., Proteus spp., and Klebsiella spp., CST3 - Staphylococcus epidermidis, CST4 - Propionibacterium spp., CST5 - Corynebacterium spp., CST6 - Moraxella spp., and CST7 - Dolosigranulum spp.   The most common CTS was CTS4 with 29% of the sampled population having that CTS, whereas CTS4 was the least popular, coming in at 6% of the individuals tested.  The researchers noted that many of these bacteria, such as Proteus, were not considered to be important to the nasal microbiome at all, so their dominance in some noses was surprising.  The scientists learned that genetics plays nearly no role in the microbiome community composition, but does influence the overall microbiome population.  In addition, gender influenced the overall population, with women having about half as many total bacteria in their noses as men.

With regards to S. aureus, while it existed in 56% of the individuals studied, it was associated with other bacterial.   For example, the researchers discovered that Dolosigranulum, and Propionibacterium granulosum were negatively correlated to the existence of S. aureus, whereas S. epidermidis was positively correlated with S. aureus abundance.  This lends itself to the idea that specific bacteria can create colonization resistance against S. aureus, and thus could be used to prevent the disease.  The researchers suggest a probiotic should be tested for its therapeutic value in preventing S. aureus colonization, and hopefully they move forward with those trials.

Please email blog@MicrobiomeInstitute.org for any comments, news, or ideas for new blog posts.

The views expressed in the blog are solely those of the author of the blog and not necessarily the American Microbiome Institute or any of our scientists, sponsors, donors, or affiliates.