CMIT Clinical Research Talk & Mixer

February 5, 2025

Location:

The Nexus, Hayden Library (14-130)

Join the MIT Center for Microbiome Informatics and Therapeutics for an evening of food, networking, and learning, with Dr. Jason Zhang, CMIT Clinical Scientist and Attending Physician at Boston Children’s Hospital Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition.

Commensal bacteria that are depleted in obesity activate enteroendocrine cells and improve host metabolism

Blautia species are common commensals in the human gut but are depleted in people with obesity and diabetes. We previously showed that Blautia are also less abundant in children with Loss of Control eating, a common form of disordered eating that carries a high risk of developing obesity. We found that acyl amines are the gut metabolites most highly associated with Blautia abundance. We identified several Blautia species in CMIT’s bacterial libraries that produce acyl amines both in vitro and in vivo, and showed that they activate gut epithelial receptors. We then used enteroendocrine cell (EEC) lines and EEC-containing human organoids to show that purified Blautia acyl amines induced secretion of GIP, PYY and GLP-1. In mice, single-dose gavage treatments of Blautia acyl amines resulted in significantly improved glycemic control. In two human cohorts, we found that the absence or very low abundance of Blautia acyl amine synthesis genes was associ-ated with severe obesity. Together, these data support the idea that Blautia species may activate enteroendocrine cells to benefit host metabolism and provide a potential target for microbiome-focused obesity therapeutics.

Questions? Email kmoniz@mit.edu