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New link between gut bacterium and autoimmune diseases

Hufsamor

Senior Member
Messages
2,768
Location
Norway
Queen’s University researchers have, for the first time, found a specific microbe in the gut that pumps out protein molecules that mimic a human protein, causing the human defense system to turn on its own cells by mistake.
 

ljimbo423

Senior Member
Messages
4,705
Location
United States, New Hampshire
This is really interesting. I'll be very interested to see if this find leads to concrete evidence of a cause of autoimmunity.

The culprit in this case is called Bacteroides fragilis, a bacterium that normally lives in the human gut. The Queen’s team has shown that this bacterium produces a human-like

protein that could trigger autoimmune diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis. This human protein is called ‘ubiquitin’ and is needed for all the normal cell processes in our bodies.

Professor Sheila Patrick, professor emeritus at Queen’s University explained:

“When we mapped the genome of Bacteroides fragilis a few years ago we were astonished to discover a human-like gene not present in any other bacteria.

The protein produced from this gene is nearly the same shape as a protein in almost every human cell.
 

Murph

:)
Messages
1,799
Seems like what they call basic research - i.e. it will open a lot of doors but not lead immediately to a cure. Bacteroides Fragilis is a very common gut bug too, so simple having it in you is obviously not sufficient to cause autoimmunity. There needs to be something more.



“When we discovered that Bacteroides fragilis produces lots of this mimic protein we were very excited. No other bacteria produced a mimic of human ubiquitin and this one lives in our gut. We immediately wondered if it might be linked with autoimmune diseases such as lupus. It has been known since the 1990s that some people with autoimmune diseases have antibodies that target their own human ubiquitin, but we don’t know why this happens. So we decided to see if people also had antibodies that target the Bacteroides fragilis version of ubiquitin.”

...


Dr. Linda Stewart said, “We have found that some people with autoimmune disease have high levels of antibodies to the bacterial mimic of ubiquitin. It is also possible to have antibodies to both the human and the bacterial mimic. We now need to work out if the mimic of ubiquitin sets up the mistaken immune response. We may then be able diagnose some autoimmune diseases early and eventually be able to prevent some of the them from happening. We now want to see if we can make a rapid test that will tell us how much antibody people have so that we can quickly see any changes. We hope that this will allow early diagnosis of disease.”

...


The next step for the research team is to find out the relationship between the stage of disease and antibody levels to the bacterial mimic in individual patients. This should help the development of a rapid test which will aim to detect antibodies to the bacterial ubiquitin and provide insight into a person’s predisposition to an autoimmune disease.
 

Abha

Abha
Messages
267
Location
UK

Hi Hufsamor/all,

Yesterday I posted a reply on another thread(re Melc23 & MS issues)about work the Japanese scientists are doing on the gut.Here is some of that again.....as it ties in with this thread....

Recently i watched a programme re Gut on NHK World TV(in English).That station is Japanese.Their programmes all in English are excellent.

This particular programme featured a girl with MS and a young lady in UK(possible Olympic gymnast) with life threatening allergies(admitted to hospital on 250 occasions plus for severe shock).In both cases lab testing showed that the ladies were low in Clostridium spp(in gut)....and the MS girl was also low in Bacteroides spp.

The allergy lady was short too of lactobacillus spp(also roseburia spp & ruminococcus spp)).Seemingly higher levels of Clostridium help produce more Treg cells which help to fight off disease.

There are seemingly more than 100 different types of Clostridium in the body....and now 17 of those have been found to help produce the Treg cells.A start up company discovered the latter and have sold off their rights to a USA company.

The young MS patient has been given a solution/drink containing Treg(like cells)/made artificially.This seems to be producing good results and the young lady is making good headway with her illness.

I hope I have remembered this correctly,if not someone else who has watched the programme can correct me.

It was interesting too, to know that Japanese people have much healthier guts(higher levels of good clostridium) than western people(in a study carried out using 11 western countries including France/Germany/Spain/USA/Sweden etc.However, that may change too if young people in Japan continue eating western foods.

It was shown too in the programme that a high fibre diet(nuts/seaweed/grains/mushrooms/green vegetables) was required to help the beneficial bacteria(clostridium etc).

It should be pointed out that not all clostridium spp are helpful.

If you search their archives you may find this programme or you could write to the station(email) and request it again.I have it recorded somewhere.

This Japanese station(TV) has done numerous other programmes on the Gut and brain connections and about how they are using this information/research to help fight various illnesses.Perhaps some of the Japanese ME/CFS sufferers who are members here could expand on this work.
 

drob31

Senior Member
Messages
1,487
Hi Hufsamor/all,

Yesterday I posted a reply on another thread(re Melc23 & MS issues)about work the Japanese scientists are doing on the gut.Here is some of that again.....as it ties in with this thread....

Recently i watched a programme re Gut on NHK World TV(in English).That station is Japanese.Their programmes all in English are excellent.

This particular programme featured a girl with MS and a young lady in UK(possible Olympic gymnast) with life threatening allergies(admitted to hospital on 250 occasions plus for severe shock).In both cases lab testing showed that the ladies were low in Clostridium spp(in gut)....and the MS girl was also low in Bacteroides spp.

The allergy lady was short too of lactobacillus spp(also roseburia spp & ruminococcus spp)).Seemingly higher levels of Clostridium help produce more Treg cells which help to fight off disease.

There are seemingly more than 100 different types of Clostridium in the body....and now 17 of those have been found to help produce the Treg cells.A start up company discovered the latter and have sold off their rights to a USA company.

The young MS patient has been given a solution/drink containing Treg(like cells)/made artificially.This seems to be producing good results and the young lady is making good headway with her illness.

I hope I have remembered this correctly,if not someone else who has watched the programme can correct me.

It was interesting too, to know that Japanese people have much healthier guts(higher levels of good clostridium) than western people(in a study carried out using 11 western countries including France/Germany/Spain/USA/Sweden etc.However, that may change too if young people in Japan continue eating western foods.

It was shown too in the programme that a high fibre diet(nuts/seaweed/grains/mushrooms/green vegetables) was required to help the beneficial bacteria(clostridium etc).

It should be pointed out that not all clostridium spp are helpful.

If you search their archives you may find this programme or you could write to the station(email) and request it again.I have it recorded somewhere.

This Japanese station(TV) has done numerous other programmes on the Gut and brain connections and about how they are using this information/research to help fight various illnesses.Perhaps some of the Japanese ME/CFS sufferers who are members here could expand on this work.


So would using mega doses of vitamin D have a similar effect, since it boosts tregs? There was a doctor who treated autoimmune diseases with high dose vitamin D.
 

Abha

Abha
Messages
267
Location
UK
So would using mega doses of vitamin D have a similar effect, since it boosts tregs? There was a doctor who treated autoimmune diseases with high dose vitamin D.

@drob31....what I gathered from the NHK documentary on The Body/Gut that I viewed recently was that higher clostridium levels produce more Treg cells that calm our bodies down and kill unwanted cells.I'm not sure how VitaminD fits into this.
 

Abha

Abha
Messages
267
Location
UK
The NHK documentary (The Body:Gut) that i mentioned above on NHK World(Japanese Tv /English) was about 52 minutes in length.It stated that it was produced by NHK in 2018 in cooperation with S4C Curiosity stream.In the preview statement it stated....Our gut brings together bacteria and immune cells to keep our immune system healthy and strong often in surprising ways.Find out why this remarkable organ (system?)does a lot more than just processing waste.
If you are interested in viewing it again (and I can recommend it) I suggest you contact NHK World(Channel 507?) and request another airing of this documentary.

On the same Channel earlier "Medical Frontiers "did a two ?part programme(about 1 hr each section) about ways to keep the gut flora in good condition , thus preventing lifestyle related sickness.As far as I remember ,diet was covered in those programmes too.The programmes were produced by NHK World in 2017 in association with NHK Global Medical Services( in co-operation with Tokyo Video Center.)
 

Hip

Senior Member
Messages
17,824
Looks like Bacteroides fragilis can also cause colon cancer when it teams up with Escherichia coli. Both these bacteria can manufacture carcinogenic toxins (they synthesize these toxins as virulence factors).


Years ago I had the idea that in the future, once we fully understand which organisms are pathogenic in the gut, and which are symbiotic and beneficial, we might research the idea of implanting the beneficial ones into the gut at a very early stage in the the life of a baby, so that they would have the most healthy microbiome possible. Perhaps this would then set up that person for a lifetime of good health.

This paper says "Initial colonization of the infant gut by microbes sets the stage for the lifelong, relatively stable adult microbiome".

I don't think a great deal of research has been done into how babies and infants acquire the good and bad elements of their microbiome. It is a haphazard processes, such that they may just as easily pick up potentially harmful organisms as beneficial ones. So maybe we should be considering making this process less haphazard, by ensuring babies get the best microbiome possible.

The same paper says: "In cases of vaginal birth, the infant is inoculated as he or she passes through the birth canal. This inoculum is a mixture of gram negative and gram positive bacteria, aerobes and anaerobes"

So maybe the birth canal could be sprayed with super-healthy bacteria just before birth.
 
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Hufsamor

Senior Member
Messages
2,768
Location
Norway
@Hip I read a book not long ago....I'll get back to the name if I can remember it one day.
The doctor who wrote it had several recommendations when it come to babies,
to make the gut flora as good as possible
(He was very clear, all those things we should avoid are sometimes unavoidable, it might even be a matter of life or death. But if one know what might be a problem for the child in the future, it is easier to do something about it)

Go for:
Natural birth, not caesarean.
Breastfeeding
Avoid antibiotics if possible (if you had to use it, he had recommendations to how to restore the gut, but I can't remember what it was)

(I seem to remember he was working mainly with children with autism, and he had thoughts about how the gut might be involved)