Gut bacteria in the years to come can help reduce the effects of aging, rather could be of great help in slowing down aging process. This could be possible with the help of supplements derived from gut bacteria. These bacterial genes and compounds can also decrease the rate of tumor progression inside our body besides amyloid beta accumulation, a compound known to be related to Alzheimer’s disease, as per University of Texas Health Science Center.
The scientists and researchers fraternity is well aware that the body interacts with millions of microbes called the microbiomes, inside the body. These microbiomes tend to influence the metabolic and cognitive activities as well as the aging process. Scientists at the Huffington Center are investigating on the possibility of importance of genetic composition of microbiomes for long life.
Experimentation
An experiment was carried out on laboratory work C. elegans as doing it on mammals was quite challenging technically. The characteristics of C. Elegans are very much similar to that of human biology and are simple, transparent organisms with a short life span of upto 3 weeks. This aids in rapid collection of data.
The experiment involved deleting one gene each from the 4000 genes at a time in an e.coli bacteria library to study the effects of each one. The researchers fed each individual mutant bacteria to the C. Elegans and then observed the worm’s life span closely.
As per the researchers, out of 4000 bacterial genes that they tested, they deleted 29 of them and found that it increased the life span of the worms. Furthermore, they also noticed that, 12 of these bacteria restricted tumor growth besides amyloid-beta accumulation. Even purified colanic acid was provided to C. Elegans and showed increased life span in them besides fruit fly and other mammalian cells. They also found that colanic acid regulated the dynamics of cellular structures called mitochondria, responsible for providing energy to the cell.
Well, based on the research that has been carried out and is being carried out, the researchers affirmatively suggest that designing supplements of the bacteria or their compounds could help slow down the aging process.
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