Healthy Bacteria Promotes a Healthy Colon (Non-Scientist)

For maximum colon health butyrate producing bacteria is needed to maintain colon balance.  Previous studies already demonstrated that gut microbiota are essential for maintaining health, still the microbiota is not the same throw out the digestive system.  Phylogenetic identification and butyrate synthesis pathway analysis on the colon microbiota can detect butyrate producing bacteria which has a beneficial or synergetic relationship with colonocytes (colon cells).  If butyrate producing bacteria in the colon were at an imbalance by inhibiting butyrate synthesis pathway then ulcerative and type II diabetes would arise³.  Butyrate producing bacteria are key in maintaining homeostatis and epithelial integrity. 

                In Marius Vital and teams study, bacteria with genes coding for butyrate synthesis pathway within the Integrated Microbial Genome (IMG) database and the sequences were analyzed with HMM model¹.  Then the genes were used to construct phylogenetic trees to compare butyrate producing bacteria genes using program MEGA¹.  The majority of the potential butyrate producing bacteria, butyrate could be produced by acetyl-CoA and lysine pathway¹.  The main producers of butyrate producing bacteria are the phylums Firmicutes, Fusobacteria, Spirochaetaceae, and Bacteroidetes¹.  Phylogenetic analysis demonstrated neighboring and joining trees indicting coevolution and that not all members of the same family exhibited the same pathway¹.  In the study specific pathway genes were detected, it does not imply its functionality in the butyrate synthesis pathway, for that more testing would be needed at a biochemical level. 

In the end, genetic sequencing and analysis was employed to study gene expresions of butyrate producing pathways, the main pathway that produce butyrate are acetyl-CoA, so to maintain the acetyl-CoA producing bacteria a steady diet of plant-derived polysaccharide such as starch and xylan is needed in order to maintain a healthy colon.  So to avoid ulcerative colitis, type II diabetes, and colon inflammation it’s highly recommended to eat your vegetables.

References:

1.       Marius Vital, Adina Chuang Howe and James M. Tiedjea.  2014.  Revealing the Bacterial Butyrate Synthesis Pathways by Analyzing (Meta)genomic Data.  America Association of Microbiology.  5(2).

2.       Marius Vital and et al.  2013.  A gene-targeted approach to investigate the intestinal butyrate-producing bacterial community.  Microbiome Journal.   

3.       Ulcerative Colitis.  2015.  Retrieved from: http://www.medicinenet.com/ulcerative_colitis/page2.htm