Short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) which include acetate (C2), propionate (C3) and butyrate (C4) are important, health-benefiting metabolites, produced when microbes in the human colon ferment polysaccharides and dietary fiber. Medium-chain fatty acids (MCFAs), such as caproate (C6) and caprylate (C8), have also been shown to provide health benefits and offer therapeutic potential for a wide variety of disorders.
Researchers at Arizona State University have developed a novel method for enhanced production of butyrate and caproate with human gut microbiota. They identified the ideal conditions for this enhanced production which could lead to a novel frontier in biotherapeutics. Under the right conditions, this could be used to design interventions, such as pre and/or probiotics, so that the ideal conditions are present and the method occurs in vivo to produce the SCFAs and MCFAs that prevent or treat human diseases.
This breakthrough opens up new avenues for treatment of metabolic, neurologic, and other disorders via microbiome modulation.
Potential Applications
- Production of beneficial short- and medium-chain fatty acids, potentially by the gut microbiome
- Could be used to design interventions (pre- or probiotic) for metabolic, neurologic, inflammatory, and other disorders including, but not limited to: obesity, diabetes, hypertriglyceridemia, cardiovascular disease, neurodegenerative and neuropsychiatric diseases, inflammatory and autoimmune diseases, infectious diseases, cancer, etc.
Benefits and Advantages
-
Enhances production of MCFAs and SCFAs that are beneficial to human health
-
The proposed method is a reliable pathway to produce these MCFAs and SCFAs
-
-
Have confirmed that microbes from the human colon can produce butyrate and caproate through this method
-
Identified the key substrates and ideal conditions needed for the production of butyrate and caproate
-
Are characterizing the microbiome to identify putative gut bacteria responsible of these metabolites in the colon
-
Has been successfully demonstrated in vitro using bioreactors
For more information about the inventor(s) and their research, please see