PhD student research project UCBM achieved thanks to the scholarship made available by Acea
di Francesca Zinghini
11 May 2021 - Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a functional disorder affecting approximately 20% of the general population with a strongly negative impact on quality of life. Can diet and daily habits contribute to developing this disorder? Yes, diet and lifestyle are actually involved in altering the composition of the microbiota in patients with IBS. Finding out how all this happens is the goal of Dr. Giovanni De Carlo, gastroenterologist, doctoral student atUniversità Campus Bio-Medico di Roma, winner of the scholarship financed by Acea.
The intestinal microbiota
The intestinal microbiota is the set of bacteria but also of fungi, viruses and protozoa residing in the digestive tract of man since birth and plays a fundamental role both in the state of good health and in that of many diseases. The pathologies most commonly called into question are many such as inflammatory and functional diseases of the digestive system, autoimmune pathologies (such as rheumatoid arthritis), obesity and metabolic syndrome, neurological pathologies involving the immune system but also some diseases oncological, for which the response to immunotherapeutic drugs can be modulated by the microbiota.
Lo microbiota imbalance is recognized as dysbiosis and generates a defined condition "Leaky Gut Syndrome" (altered intestinal permeability syndrome) in which there is a loss of the defensive capabilities of the intestinal mucosal barrier which normally hinders the transepithelial passage of toxins, antigens of various kinds and pathogens which pass through the intestinal lumen. Dysbiosis can be caused by environmental factors: an incorrect lifestyle and a diet high in fat and including junk food or as a result of antibiotic therapies or gastrointestinal infections.
To date, no research has been conducted to establish how determined environmental factors are effectively associated with intestinal dysbiosis and the consequent alteration of intestinal permeability. In fact, studies on permeability are still discordant, also because its state is often measured with indirect techniques that do not allow to obtain a correct quantification of the problem. However, there is one innovative method, at the center of Dr. Giovanni De Carlo, which allows analyze ex vivo on colon biopsies the permeability of the mucosal barrier, measuring its transepithelial resistance and the effective passage of molecules through it. Intestinal dysbiosis in irritable bowel syndrome is also often measured with indirect techniques, such as the lactulose breath test, when it is instead possible to analyze the microbial composition directly on the sample with next generation genomic sequencing (NGS) techniques. And it is precisely from these techniques that the PhD student's project will develop UCBM, assisted by Michele Cicala, full professor of Gastroenterology, and by Michele Guarino, associate professor of Gastroenterology.
