Mucin-based Prebiotic Materials to Enhance Beneficial Microbes in the Gut
Mucus forms a prime interface for hostmicrobiome interactions. Mucins (shown by scanning electron microscopy) are gel-forming polymers of mucus and display dense arrays of glycans. We shall identify how mucins and their glycans retain and bolster health-associated microbes, and confer resilience against external stressors including pathogen invasion.
Beneficial gut bacteria actively shape our health by excluding pathogens, balancing gut community via cross-feeding, aiding in digestion, and secretion of diverse metabolites. These processes directly stimulate immune system and impact neurocognitive processes on the gut-brain axis.
Depletion of beneficial species and associated adverse outcomes frequently occur during administration of antibiotics, a vital part of modern healthcare used to treat infections and enable invasive treatments. Decline in microbial diversity and loss of key probiotics is also co-morbid with multiple disease states such as irritable bowel syndrome, inflammatory bowel disease, colon cancer, and neurocognitive disorders.
One critical step to restoring damaged microbiomes is the stable re-introduction of probiotic bacteria. Gut commensals express a multitude of specific mucin-glycan-interacting proteins that promote their survival and colonization in the host. This project will capitalize on this principle, identify prebiotic mucin glycans, and re-format them into bio-enabled and readily deliverable “prebiotic” materials that are selectively utilized by gut commensals.
In our previous ICB work we have identified groups of mucin glycans that boost fitness of important probiotic bacteria. We shall leverage the untapped potential of host mucin glycans and engineer bio-enabled materials that display bioactive sugars that bolster adhesion and probiotic effects of key gut commensals.
Our long-term goal is to engineer materials that support health via multiple functionalities, including facilitating the selection and retention of beneficial commensals while attenuating the virulence and outgrowth of pathogens.
