Research Paper Volume 5, Issue 12 pp 902—912
Functional metagenomic profiling of intestinal microbiome in extreme ageing
- 1 Department of Pharmacy and Biotechnology, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
- 2 Nestlé Institute of Health Sciences SA, Molecular Biomarkers, EPFL Innovation Park, bâtiment H, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
- 3 Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine, St. Orsola-Malpighi University Hospital, Bologna, Italy
- 4 School of Microbiology & Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre, University College Cork, Ireland
Received: November 14, 2013 Accepted: December 6, 2013 Published: December 10, 2013
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.100623How to Cite
Copyright: © 2022 Rampelli et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Age-related alterations in human gut microbiota composition have been thoroughly described, but a detailed functional description of the intestinal bacterial coding capacity is still missing. In order to elucidate the contribution of the gut metagenome to the complex mosaic of human longevity, we applied shotgun sequencing to total fecal bacterial DNA in a selection of samples belonging to a well-characterized human ageing cohort. The age-related trajectory of the human gut microbiome was characterized by loss of genes for shortchain fatty acid production and an overall decrease in the saccharolytic potential, while proteolytic functions were more abundant than in the intestinal metagenome of younger adults. This altered functional profile was associated with a relevant enrichment in “pathobionts”, i.e. opportunistic pro-inflammatory bacteria generally present in the adult gut ecosystem in low numbers. Finally, as a signature for long life we identified 116 microbial genes that significantly correlated with ageing. Collectively, our data emphasize the relationship between intestinal bacteria and human metabolism, by detailing the modifications in the gut microbiota as a consequence of and/or promoter of the physiological changes occurring in the human host upon ageing.