Reacción a "Microbiota of pregnant mice influences the stem cells of their offspring"

This paper attempts to demonstrate whether the maternal microbiome conditions neural maturation and gut differentiation by exposure of the foetus to bacterial metabolites before birth. It is a very solid work with few methodological limitations, using many animals and many complementary experiments.

The authors chose Akkermansia muciniphila as a healthy bacterium, and they make sure to make groups of mothers colonised or not by this bacterium. They also measure the metabolites that are exclusively produced by the bacteria, the short-chain fatty acids, and find that the group of mothers colonised by A. muciniphila have higher values. They also detect higher concentrations of amino acids necessary for neuron differentiation. In addition, the gut microbiome of mice born to A. muciniphila-colonised dams is richer and more diverse, which is associated with better gut health. In cell culture, the increased availability of metabolites helps differentiate nerve cells, and to complement the study they have blocked the mTOR pathway that is critical for cell differentiation.

The novelty of this work is that it demonstrates with very solid data that the intestinal microbiota of the mother conditions the maturation of the nervous system and the intestine of foetuses, even before birth, and the effect lasts up to 10 months postnatal. Thus, improving the gut microbiome of mothers, especially with probiotic supplementation and a healthy diet will also improve the health of the child. This is a very solid article. As always, there is a question as to whether [these results in mice] will be reproduced in humans, but there have been indications on this topic for some time.