Gut bacteria can sense their environment and it's key to your health

"Your gut is home to trillions of bacteria that constantly "sense" their surroundings to survive and thrive. New research shows that beneficial gut microbes, especially common Clostridia bacteria, can detect a surprisingly wide range of chemical signals produced during digestion, including byproducts of fats, proteins, sugars, and even DNA. These microbes use specialized sensors to move toward valuable nutrients, with lactate and formate standing out as especially important fuel sources."

"The gut microbiome, also called the gut flora, plays a vital role in human health. This enormous and constantly changing community of microorganisms is shaped by countless chemical exchanges, both among the microbes themselves and between microbes and the human body. For these interactions to work, gut bacteria must be able to detect nutrients and chemical signals around them. Despite their importance, scientists still know relatively little about the full range of signals that bacterial receptors can recognize."

"A key question remains. Which chemical signals matter most to beneficial gut bacteria? Until now, much of what scientists understand about bacterial sensing has come from studying model organisms, especially disease-causing bacteria. Far less attention has been given to commensals, the non-pathogenic or beneficial microbes that naturally live in the human body. This gap has left researchers wondering what kinds of chemical information these helpful bacteria are actually detecting in their environment."

Beneficial gut microbes, particularly Clostridia, sense a wide variety of chemical signals produced during digestion, including byproducts of fats, proteins, sugars, and DNA. These microbes use specialized sensors to move toward valuable nutrients, with lactate and formate serving as especially important fuel sources. The gut microbiome contains trillions of microorganisms whose interactions are shaped by constant chemical exchanges among microbes and between microbes and the human host. Effective microbial interactions depend on the ability to detect surrounding nutrients and signals. Much existing knowledge about bacterial sensing derives from disease-causing model organisms, leaving commensal sensing relatively understudied.

Read at ScienceDaily