FMT, which involves transferring lower intestinal fluids and germs from one person to another, is sometimes used to treat bacterial infections and inflammatory bowel illnesses like ulcerative colitis. It was brought to western medicine in the 1950s, despite the fact that a form of it was originally mentioned in 4th century China. It has steadily risen to fame over the past 20 years. Under the direction of the Bork group at EMBL Heidelberg, researchers from the Netherlands and Australia have now used this unusual medical procedure to look into what happens when two gut microbiomes mix.
The solution may provide hints for more effective treatment plans for digestive diseases as well as a deeper understanding of how various bacteria species behave and interact in intricate natural ecosystems.
transferring microorganisms
Although FMTs have successfully treated some gut illnesses in clinical studies, it is still unknown how they work. Some people claim that the recipient’s gut can regain health thanks to the beneficial qualities of the gut microbiomes of donors. But this has never been formally investigated.
The idea that selecting “excellent” donors is crucial to the clinical effectiveness of an FMT and that a good donor will be effective for a variety of patients is known as the “super donor” theory, according to Sebastian Schmidt, one of the study’s primary authors.
However, the researchers found that the receiver, not the donor, is likely what predominantly influences the microbial mix as a result of this treatment utilizing clinical and metagenomic data from over 300 FMTs. This builds on a 2016 study from the Bork group that demonstrated the possibility of coexisting microbial strains from a donor and a recipient with metabolic syndrome.
The group created a machine-learning method to analyze the variables, such as the existence or absence of specific microbial species, that affect microbial dynamics following an FMT. Their findings demonstrate that species richness (a measure of how diverse a recipient’s gut microbiomes was prior to transplant) and the degree to which a recipient’s gut microbiomes differs from a donor’s are both important determinants of which species will survive and flourish after a transplant.
A test of the environment
Simone Li, first author of both this study and the one from 2016, considers the findings to be noteworthy from an ecological standpoint. She said that in a dynamic environment like the human gastrointestinal tract, where there are regular fluctuations in pH, oxygen levels, and nutrition, among other things, “being able to grow and live in a whole new habitat is no simple challenge.” What goes in simply matters to the extent that they remain long enough to provide the anticipated advantages as we advance toward safer options for microbiomes-based treatments.
Researchers may make significant inferences about the parameters that influence how successfully or readily bacteria might “colonize” in new surroundings by treating FMT treatments as ecological experiments where entire microbial ecosystems are replaced at new sites with pre-existing ecosystems.
This may also have significant practical applications, as Peer Bork, the study’s corresponding author, notes. We may find more precise and focused connections to clinical consequences as our understanding of the ecological processes in the gut after FMT advances—for instance, to displace only specific strains (e.g., pathogens) while minimizing “collateral” effects on the rest of the microbiomes.
Although over 90% of the gut microbiomes is made up of bacteria and archaea, which were the focus of this study, the researchers are optimistic that future research will also include data from fungi, other eukaryotes, and viruses to provide a more complete picture of this process.
“In the future, I hope (and am confident that) our findings will contribute to the creation of FMT regimens that are more effective. We offer information on the variables that are worth adjusting (and those that are not) while trying to modify the microbiomes of the receiver. In the long term, this could also guide the development of “next-gen” customized probiotic therapy, “added Schmidt.
