Monkey Microbes and Human Health: Putting health disparities into an - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Monkey Microbes and Human Health: Putting health disparities into an evolutionary context Katherine R. Amato Department of Anthropology Northwestern University

Gut microbiota Nutrition Immune function Mental state

The Gut Microbiota • Implicated in: – Hypertension – Asthma – Cardiovascular Disease – Obesity – Cancer – And more…

Health Disparities • Apparent in: – Hypertension – Asthma – Cardiovascular Disease – Obesity – Cancer – And more…

How important are gut microbes for understanding patterns of health inequality across populations?

Increased SCFA Production à More Energy to Host

Gut Microbes Compensate Across Seasons Energy Intake ê F 2,38 = 3.56, r 2 = 0.14, p = 0.0002 Amato et al. 2015, Microbial Ecology

Gut Microbes Compensate For Life History • Juveniles – Characterized by Firmicutes ( Faecalibacterium, Roseburia, Ruminococcus) • Adult Females – High Firmicutes:Bacteroidetes ratio – Characterized by Lactococcus Amato et al. 2014, AJPA

Do these apparently beneficial relationships break down?

Gut Microbes Degraded With Habitat Disturbance Amato et al. 2013, ISME J

Gut Microbes Degraded With Habitat Disturbance 14000 12000 Chao1 diversity estimate 10000 8000 6000 4000 2000 0 Continuous Continuous SD Fragmented Captivity Rainforest Rainforest Habitat Quality ê Amato et al. 2013, ISME J

Gut Microbes Degraded With Habitat Disturbance 0.030% 0.025% Relative abundance 0.020% 0.015% 0.010% Butyrivibrio 0.005% Desulfovibrio 0.000% Habitat Quality ê Amato et al. 2013, ISME J

Extreme Case: Captivity in Primates 0.2 (A) (B) PC2 - 19% Provenance 0.1 Genus Captive Alouatta Wild Cercopithecus Colobus MDS2 Gorilla 0.0 Pan Wild_captive captive PC1 - 25% wild -0.1 PC3 - 9% -0.2 -0.2 -0.1 0.0 0.1 0.2 MDS1 Frankel et al. in prep Amato et al. 2016, GECCO

Weighted Unifrac Host Genus Douc Langur Colobus GI Health Status healthy unhealthy Unweighted Unifrac uncertain Amato et al. 2016, GECCO

Not just diet… PC2: 15.2% Sample Location and Age (18) Cayo: Adult (9) Cayo: Juvenile (15) SS: Adult (10) SS: Juvenile PC1: 35.8% 3000 PC3: 9.5% 2500 2000 Chao1 1500 1000 Weighted UniFrac (F 1,51 =5.01, r 2 =0.09, p <0.01) 500 0 Adult Juvenile Adult Juvenile Amato et al. in prep Cayo Sabana Seca

Probably…but we need more data

Industrialization and the Gut Microbiota Schnorr et al. 2014, Martinez et al. 2015, Clemente et al. 2015

What about mismatch situations?

Hossain et al. 2007

Major Questions • Does a maternal history of undernutrition in early life lead to a energy-efficient gut microbiota in adulthood? • Can these microbial traits be passed to infants and affect health outcomes (particularly if the nutritional environment shifts)?

Philippines Study site «

3327 pregnant The Cebu Study women enrolled (1983) The Cebu Longitudinal Health & Nutrition Survey Birth Mothers Offspring Grandoffspring 1983-4 1984-6 1991 1994 1998-9 2000 2005 2017 preg & birth infancy childhood puberty young adult Data collection on full sample

Mom

Mom Baby (2 weeks)

Mom Baby (2 weeks) Baby (6 months)

Final Thoughts • To understand what is ‘wrong’ with the microbiome when there are health issues, we need to: – Understand what was evolutionarily ‘right’ – Understand what perturbations have altered the system • Studies of human populations are critical • Non-human primates give us an even broader context

Thank you!