The first symposium on gnotobiology in Russia
The latest achievements in the study of microorganisms that coexist with the human body are presented by the international forum taking place these days in St. Petersburg
Marina Astvatsaturyan, Echo of MoscowThe latest achievements in the study of microorganisms that coexist with the human body are presented by the international forum taking place these days in St. Petersburg.
The International Scientific Congress "Microbiota and Human Health", as well as the XVIII International Symposium on Gnotobiology, are events within the framework of the III International Environmental Forum "Environment and Human Health", which opened on the 21st and will last until September 24.
The Symposium on Gnotobiology is being held in Russia for the first time. In addition to the microbiota, that is, the totality of microbes inhabiting our body, their role in maintaining human health, the forum participants discuss new trends in the treatment and prevention of infectious diseases, in particular, the transplantation of fecal microbiota in the treatment of infection associated with Clostridium difficile, as well as research conducted on non-microbial animals. Sterile, that is, animals devoid of microflora – this is the object of the experimental science of gnotobiology.
There are a lot of gnotobiological models of animals – both completely antimicrobial and animals with a controlled microbiota composition – have been created at present, and they help to understand the relationship of the host organism with its microflora. From the point of view of gnotobiologists, which was formulated in his address to the readers of the Journal of Gnotobiology ("Journal of Germfree Life and Gnotobiology") and the forum participants by Professor Boris Shenderov, who until recently headed the International Association of Gnotobiology (IAG), "the human body can be considered as a complex superorganism, including a huge number of symbiotic unicellular nuclear-free (or prokaryotic) and more highly organized nuclear (i.e. eukaryotic) cells, viruses and archibacteria." According to this concept, adults are more prokaryotic than eukaryotic organisms, taking into account the number of corresponding cells and, in particular, the number of genes active in them.
Two years ago, the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) published the results of the Human Microbiome Project, in which a genetic map of all microbes living in the human body was obtained. According to the results of genetic analysis of the material collected from 242 healthy volunteers, it was found that more than 10 thousand species of various microbes live in the human body. In the same project, data were obtained indicating that it is according to the microbiome, that is, according to the genetics of the bacteria inhabiting our intestines, modern humanity is divided into three types. These are three types of intestinal ecosystems, which are called enterotypes. The forum taking place in St. Petersburg gives an opportunity to publish new information about the contribution of microbiota to the vital activity of our body.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru23.09.2014