McKenney Erin A, Williamson Lauren, Yoder Anne D, Rawls John F, Bilbo Staci D, Parker William
a Departments of Biology; Duke University ; Durham , NC , USA.
Gut Microbes. 2015;6(3):182-93. doi: 10.1080/19490976.2015.1047128.
The microbiome is now widely recognized as being important in health and disease, and makes up a substantial subset of the biome within the ecosystem of the vertebrate body. At the same time, multicellular, eukaryotic organisms such as helminths are being recognized as an important component of the biome that shaped the evolution of our genes. The absence of these macroscopic organisms during the early development and life of humans in Western culture probably leads to a wide range of human immunological diseases. However, the interaction between the microbiome and macroscopic components of the biome remains poorly characterized. In this study, the microbiome of the cecum in rats colonized for 2 generations with the small intestinal helminth Hymenolepis diminuta was evaluated. The introduction of this benign helminth, which is of considerable therapeutic interest, led to several changes in the cecal microbiome. Most of the changes were within the Firmicutes phylum, involved about 20% of the total bacteria, and generally entailed a shift from Bacilli to Clostridia species in the presence of the helminth. The results point toward ecological relationships between various components of the biome, with the observed shifts in the microbiome suggesting potential mechanisms by which this helminth might exert therapeutic effects.
微生物群现在已被广泛认为在健康和疾病中起着重要作用，并且构成了脊椎动物身体生态系统中生物群落的一个重要子集。与此同时，多细胞真核生物，如蠕虫，正被视为塑造我们基因进化的生物群落的重要组成部分。在西方文化中，人类早期发育和生活过程中缺乏这些宏观生物，可能会导致多种人类免疫疾病。然而，微生物群与生物群落宏观组成部分之间的相互作用仍未得到充分描述。在本研究中，对连续两代感染小肠蠕虫微小膜壳绦虫的大鼠盲肠微生物群进行了评估。引入这种具有相当大治疗意义的良性蠕虫，导致盲肠微生物群发生了一些变化。大多数变化发生在厚壁菌门内，涉及约20%的细菌总数，并且在有蠕虫存在的情况下，通常会导致从芽孢杆菌属向梭菌属的转变。这些结果表明了生物群落各组成部分之间的生态关系，微生物群的观察到的变化提示了这种蠕虫可能发挥治疗作用的潜在机制。
