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Oct 15, 2024 | 
broadinstitute.org | Ari Navetta |Ramnik Xavier |Clary B. Clish |Caroline Uhler
Though his focus shifted over time, being a scientist was always the plan for Eric Brown since kindergarten. “First it was dinosaurs and whales, and then it turned into birds, and then it turned into microbes,” he said. Years later, Brown began studying structural biology as an undergraduate student at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada.
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Sep 18, 2024 | 
nature.com | Munehiro Furuichi |Takaaki Kawaguchi |Keiko Yasuma-Mitobe |Damian R. Plichta |Masahiro Ueda |Nobuyuki Okahashi | +10 more
AbstractPersistent colonization and outgrowth of potentially pathogenic organisms in the intestine can result from long-term antibiotic use or inflammatory conditions, and may perpetuate dysregulated immunity and tissue damage1,2. Gram-negative Enterobacteriaceae gut pathobionts are particularly recalcitrant to conventional antibiotic treatment3,4, although an emerging body of evidence suggests that manipulation of the commensal microbiota may be a practical alternative therapeutic strategy5,6,7.
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Aug 20, 2024 | 00314-3&sz=64)
cell.com | Eric Brown |Phuong Nguyen |Phương Nguyên |Ramnik Xavier
Summary The strong association of the human leukocyte antigen B∗27 alleles (HLA-B∗27) with spondyloarthritis and related rheumatic conditions has long fascinated researchers, yet the precise mechanisms underlying its pathogenicity remain elusive. Here, we review how interplay between the microbiome, the immune system, and the enigmatic HLA-B∗27 could trigger spondyloarthritis, with a focus on whether HLA-B∗27 presents an arthritogenic peptide.
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Apr 17, 2024 | 
usnews.com | Ramnik Xavier
By Dennis Thompson HealthDay ReporterHealthDayWEDNESDAY, April 17, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- Changes in gut bacteria have been linked to a variety of different diseases, including type 2 diabetes, obesity and inflammatory bowel disease. Now, a new study indicates that gut bacteria also might play a role in a person’s risk of developing heart disease.
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Jan 3, 2024 | 
nature.com | Daria V. Zhernakova |Daoming Wang |Lei Liu |Angel J. Ruiz-Moreno |Haoran Peng |Niels Plomp | +7 more
AbstractAlthough the impact of host genetics on gut microbial diversity and the abundance of specific taxa is well established1,2,3,4,5,6, little is known about how host genetics regulates the genetic diversity of gut microorganisms. Here we conducted a meta-analysis of associations between human genetic variation and gut microbial structural variation in 9,015 individuals from four Dutch cohorts.
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Dec 12, 2023 | 00494-6&sz=64)
cell.com | Ramnik Xavier
Fungi are consistently enriched in inflamed intestines, with elusive effects on host immunity. In a recent issue of Nature Medicine, Martini et al. identify a subset of Th1 cells able to lyse the epithelium, enriched in Crohn’s disease patient samples after fungal exposure.
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Dec 5, 2023 | 
nature.com | Stephanie Collins |Pedro Belda-Ferre |Hsueh-Han Lu |Julian Avila-Pacheco |Damian R. Plichta |Mingxun Wang | +9 more
AbstractDetermining the structure and phenotypic context of molecules detected in untargeted metabolomics experiments remains challenging. Here we present reverse metabolomics as a discovery strategy, whereby tandem mass spectrometry spectra acquired from newly synthesized compounds are searched for in public metabolomics datasets to uncover phenotypic associations.
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Aug 17, 2023 | 
nature.com | Ramnik Xavier
AbstractMetabolomics studies have identified small molecules that mediate cell signaling, competition and disease pathology, in part due to large-scale community efforts to measure tandem mass spectra for thousands of metabolite standards. Nevertheless, the majority of spectra observed in clinical samples cannot be unambiguously matched to known structures.
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May 31, 2023 | 
nature.com | Matthias Zilbauer |Kylie R. James |Mandeep Kaur |Sebastian Pott |Zhixin Li |Jay R. Thiagarajah | +20 more
AbstractThe number of studies investigating the human gastrointestinal tract using various single-cell profiling methods has increased substantially in the past few years. Although this increase provides a unique opportunity for the generation of the first comprehensive Human Gut Cell Atlas (HGCA), there remains a range of major challenges ahead.
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May 31, 2023 | 
consumer.healthday.com | Ramnik Xavier
WEDNESDAY, May 31, 2023 (HealthDay News) -- A key to living to 100 may be the viruses living in a centenarian’s guts. “This snapshot of how the virome interacts with gut microbiomes could tell us about how microbial and viral ecology evolves over the lifetime of a person,” said Ramnik Xavier, director of immunology and co-director of the infectious disease and microbiome program at the Broad Institute of MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), in Cambridge, Mass.
