A groundbreaking study led by David Berry and Alessandra Riva from the Center for Microbiology and Environmental Systems Sciences (CeMESS) at the University of Vienna has significantly expanded the understanding of prebiotics in nutrition and gut health. The study, recently published in Nature Communications, reveals the broad and diverse effects of inulin, a widely used prebiotic, on the human gut microbiome. The scientists see their method as a pioneering step towards personalized nutritional supplements.
In recent years, prebiotics such as inulin have increasingly attracted attention from the food and supplement industries. Prebiotics are non-digestible food components that promote the growth of beneficial microorganisms in the intestines. Inulin, one of the most popular commercial prebiotics, is naturally abundant in foods such as bananas, wheat, onions and garlic. When we eat these foods, the inulin enters our large intestine, where it is broken down and fermented by intestinal bacteria.
Studies have shown that inulin could have positive effects on human health, such as: B. an anti-inflammatory effect and anti-cancer properties. However, the complex nature of the human gut, home to approximately 100 trillion microbes, poses a challenge in deciphering the precise effects of supplements like inulin.
Innovative approach to tracking the effects of inulin
In a recent study led by researchers at the University of Vienna, fluorescently labeled nanoparticles were used to track the interaction of inulin with intestinal bacteria. When incubated with human stool samples, these nanoparticles grafted with inulin produced a surprising result: a wide range of intestinal bacteria, far more than previously thought, can bind to inulin.
“Most prebiotic compounds are selectively utilized by only a few types of microbes,” explains lead researcher David Berry. “However, we found that the ability to bind to inulin is widespread in our gut microbiota.” Using a state-of-the-art technique to identify the cells that actively synthesize proteins, the team discovered that a diverse group of bacteria actively respond to inulin, including some species that had not previously been assigned this property, such as members of the bacterial class Coriobacteriia.
“Inulin dietary supplements have been on the market for years, but precise scientific evidence on their health-promoting effects is still missing,” says Berry. “We previously thought that inulin mainly stimulated bifidobacteria, the so-called ‘good bacteria’, but now we know that the effect of inulin is much more complex. Our study points the way for the future of microbiome-based medicine: with our method In the future, nutritional supplements will be personalized, precisely designed and scientifically based.”
Each person’s microbiota reacts differently to prebiotics
“Interestingly, when we compared stool samples from different people, we found significant differences in the microbial communities that respond to inulin,” says Alessandra Riva, also leader of the study. “These results underscore the importance of taking individual differences into account when developing nutritional recommendations and microbiome-based interventions,” explains Riva. CeMESS research not only contributes to a better understanding of prebiotic metabolism in the human digestive tract, but also to a better framework for studying it. “Our approach to labeling and sorting cells based on their metabolic activity is relatively new,” explains Riva. “We hope that our study can serve as a framework for future research and development of new microbiome-based therapies.”
Original publication:
Riva, A., Rasoulimehrabani, H., Cruz-Rubio, JM, Schnorr, SL, von Baeckmann, C., Inan, D., Nikolov, G., Herbold, CW, Hausmann, B., Pjevac, P., Schintlmeister, A., Spittler, A., Palatinszky, M., Kadunic, A., Hieger, N., Del Favero, G., von Bergen, M., Jehmlich, N., Watzka, M., Lee, KS , Wiesenbauer, J., Khadem, S., Viernstein, H., Stocker, R., Wagner, M., Kaiser, C., Richter, A., Kleitz, F., and Berry, D. Identification of inulin- responsive bacteria in the gut microbiota via multi-modal activity-based sorting. Nature Communications 14 (2023).
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-43448-z
Wissenschaftlicher Kontakt Prof. Dr. David Berry Centre for Microbiology and Environmental Systems Science (CeMESS) Universität Wien 1030 Wien, Djerassiplatz 1 T +43-1-4277-91212 [email protected] www.univie.ac.at Rückfragehinweis Theresa Bittermann Media Relations, Universität Wien 1010 Wien, Universitätsring 1 T +43-1-4277-17541 [email protected] www.univie.ac.at