(HealthDay News) — The gut microbiome has a potential functional role in the pathogenesis of type 2 diabetes (T2D), according to a study published online June 25 in Nature Medicine.
Zhendong Mei, PhD, from Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, and colleagues analyzed 8,117 shotgun metagenomes from 10 cohorts of individuals with T2D, prediabetes, and normoglycemic status in the United States, Europe, Israel and China in a comprehensive study of the T2D microbiome.
The researchers identified associations between dysbiosis in 19 phylogenetically diverse species with T2D; for example, enriched Clostridium bolteae and depleted Butyrivibrio crossotus. These microorganisms also contributed to community-level functional changes that may underlie pathogenesis of T2D, such as perturbations in glucose metabolism. Within-species phylogenetic diversity was identified for strains of 27 species that account for inter-individual differences in T2D risk; these were explained by strain-specific gene carriage in some cases, including loci involved in various mechanisms of horizontal gene transfer and novel biological processes underlying metabolic risk.
“Although our study does not establish causal linkages and should be interpreted as hypothesis generating, it offers the most comprehensive evidence to date of the gut microbiome’s involvement in the pathogenesis of T2D from the population study perspective,” the authors write. “These results lay the groundwork for future mechanistic studies.”
One author disclosed ties to Zoe Nutrition, Empress Therapeutics and Seres Therapeutics.
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