The Shittiest Job May Too Have a Probiotic Lining!
ABHIJIT
In the series of images below, Abhijit takes us through a day in the life of a gut microbiome researcher. Yup! Some microbes happily thrive in the guts, and they serve important survival functions for human beings.
Hover on the sign against each image for interesting information shared by Abhijit on these fascinating resident microbes, and the interesting challenges that they pose to researchers working with them.
Fresh stool collection
Transport stool samples
in cold chain
Transferring fresh stool in anaerobic culture bottles for enrichment
Isolating specific gut microbes can be scientifically daunting! Many gut microbes are obligate anaerobes, meaning, oxygen can be toxic for them, with some being very ‘choosy’ and ‘finicky’ in what they prefer to eat and grow on! Thus, researchers need to work in specialized anaerobic chambers that replicate the oxygen-free conditions of the gut and provide them with specialized food to grow. These chambers are costly to maintain, hard to work in, and require meticulous handling, as even brief exposure to oxygen can kill our target organisms!
No oxygen please!!
Enabling the fussy microbes to grow !
Yaay, isolated a gut microbe!!
Could it be a gut probiotic strain?
Let’s identify!
Top left illustration credits to London Gastrology Centre,
Image credits to Abhijit
Now that we have isolated a gut microbe, let me tell you a little about them:
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The gut microbiome—an intricate community of trillions of microbes living in the human digestive tract (gut)—has emerged as a cornerstone of health and disease research. Throughout evolution, gut-dwelling microbes have performed important tasks for the human hosts which include synthesizing essential vitamins, helping in digesting complex fibers, producing metabolites for cellular signaling and development, and through their presence, train our immune system from birth in identifying pathogenic microbes. Research has demonstrated that gut microbes may even affect our mental health!
What is a probiotic strain?
A probiotic gut microbe has the capacity to confer a health benefit to the host when consumed. Such strains undergo further testing to confirm whether they are effective and safe for consumption! For example, consuming such probiotic microbes can be effective in helping restore microbes in your gut that were unnecessarily killed by heavy doses of antibiotics! New research is also targeting precision probiotics for lactose intolerance, obese individuals, and athletes to help them achieve targets without popping pills!
About Abhijit
Abhijit is a PhD scholar at the National Centre for Cell Science (NCCS), Pune and works on the gut microbiome of Indian populations.
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