The microbiome, the human genome, and diet: An emerging story of symbiosis (discussed by the group on 10/16/13)

You are what you eat. You also happen to be what the thousands of other microbes that inhabit your body eat.  Far more important than either one alone is the relationship between you, your microbiome, and your diet, which together influence your risk for certain diseases.  

A recent paper by Wang et al. (2011) is one of the first to show the effects of imbalance in this complex dance resulting in disease risk. Through a metabolomic screen, the formation of atherosclerotic plaques was found to be associated with a metabolite, whose generation requires certain intestinal microbes, a human protein in the liver, and dietary sources of choline such as fish, red meat, eggs, and milk.  The relationship between host genetics, the microbiome, and environmental factors, is emerging as an exciting area of focus in understanding the architecture of complex disease.

The Paper:

• Wang, Z. et al., Nature 472, 57–63 (2011).

See also: Tang, W.H.W. et al. New England Journal of Medicine 368, 1575-1584 (2013).

A schematic showing the three components necessary for TMAO production. Wang et al. (2011) showed that TMAO is highly associated with cardiovascular disease risk. Figure from Rak & Radar, Nature, 472, 40-41 (2011).