A new diagnostic imaging tool measures an enzyme that occurs naturally in the gastrointestinal tract

A healthy person has a general balance of good and bad bacteria. But that balance is thrown off when someone becomes ill. So, to help increase the levels of their good bacteria, many people take probiotic medications – live bacteria inside a pill. There are various commercial probiotic supplies available for consumer purchase, and while health experts generally agree on their overall safety, controversy surrounds their effectiveness.

Within the human body there is a large microscopic community called the midge, where trillions of bacteria engage in a sustained “tug of war” to produce the best levels of good bacteria. bad to maintain. Most of this stress takes place within the body’s gastrointestinal tract, as bacteria help digest food and support the immune system. While health experts believe that good “gut” health is vital to a person’s health and well-being, scientists are still developing a detailed picture of what is going on within a person’s gastrointestinal tract.

To date, we have had no means of monitoring activity in the incomplete gastrointestinal tract, with attention to the unique chemical environment, variable circulation and the highly active nature of the gut microbiota. “

Elena Goun, Associate Professor, Department of Chemistry, University of Missouri

In a new study published in Advances in science, Goun and an international team of scientists have developed a noninvasive diagnostic imaging tool to measure naturally occurring enzyme levels – bile salt hydrolase – within the body ‘s entire gastrointestinal tract. Goun said their device performs three main functions:

• Predicting the clinical status of inflammatory bowel disease, such as Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis.
• Determining the effectiveness of many commercially available probiotic products by testing for the level of bile salt hydrolase, which is responsible for all the key health-promoting functions of probiotics.
• Assessing whether certain types of prebiotics – dietary fibers known to support digestive health – can increase bile salt hydrolase levels in a similar way to probiotic drugs.

Goun, who is specifically developing biochemical imaging devices to advance knowledge and understanding of various processes that lead to human diseases, believes their findings are inspiring, especially with the associated discovery to prebiotics, found naturally in foods such as whole grains, nuts and seeds, and fruits and vegetables.

“Prebiotics are often used in combination with probiotics to strengthen their functions in the body,” Goun said. “We show for the first time that some types of prebiotics alone are capable of increasing bile salt-hydrolase activity of the gut microbiota, which has been proven among other health benefits of reducing inflammation, reduce blood cholesterol levels, and protect against colon cancer and urinary tract diseases. In my opinion, this finding is quite large because the production and storage of prebiotics is cheaper than with probiotics. “

Previous reports have noted that high bile salt-hydrolase activity of the gastrointestinal tract indicates improved digestive health and lack of inflammation in the body. Goun said their noninvasive method uses bioluminescence – a chemical reaction that gives light inside a living organism – to measure the level of salt-hydrolase activity across the entire gastrointestinal tract.

“Our imaging device is a bioluminescent probe in capsule form,” Goun said. “When someone swallows it, it is exposed to the entire gut microbiota as it travels throughout the harsh environment of the entire gastrointestinal tract. After it has been excreted from the body, we can examine on the stool sample of a person. We can extract the results of that analysis and link it to the amount of bile salt-hydrolase activity within the human gastrointestinal tract. “

Goun believes that this research could lead to better medical treatments by providing scientists with a way to better understand how an individual’s gut health is linked to a number of human pathologies, or the origin and nature of diseases. human.

“This is the first example of the use of bioluminescent imaging probes in humans,” Goun said. “Gut midges play a key role in a number of health issues such as cancer, diabetes, obesity, Parkinson’s, depression and autism, and now this new tool will help us to better understand the relationship between gut function and these diseases. By the way. , allows us to develop more effective probiotics and prebiotics to improve gut health. “