Know more

Growing evidence has firmly established that human gut microbiota, which is central to host metabolism and immunity, interacts with foodborne chemicals, i.e. micropollutants produced through the food and agriculture industry or compounds newly-formed though processing and cooking. This interaction can lead to major impacts via altered gut microbiota functions but also via bacterial metabolization of the foodborne chemicals. This research set out to investigate the human gut microbiota responses to acute exposure to a panel of foodborne chemical contaminants: a pesticide (deltamethrin), a brominated flame retardant (HBCD), a dioxin (TCDD), selected polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), a set of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), and a heterocyclic amine (PhIP).
The exposure-induced changes in the volatolome pattern analyzed via solid-phase microextraction (SPME) and gas chromatography– mass spectrometry (GC-MS) included disruptive imbalance in certain sulfur, phenolic and ester compounds. In parallel, inflammatory marker measurements and metatranscriptomics analysis converged to show that food chemicals impact the levels of microbial gene expression tied to certain metabolic pathways (lipids, membranes, ribosome, and more) and promote the signs of a moderate pro-inflammatory state in the gut. Research is underway to validate the robustness of the semiochemical volatiles earmarked as candidate markers of xenobiotic exposures and to evaluate their potential to capture and reveal shifts in certain metabolic pathways and microbial activities.

These findings bolster an emerging concept that foodborne chemicals can disrupt human gut microbiota activities. Our research so far has focused on acute exposure settings. The next step is to study chronic microbiota exposure to these same contaminants alone or in mixtures.