Obesity and diabetes are influenced by gastrointestinal metabolism. To gain a better understanding of the interdependencies DZD scientists at the Helmholtz Zentrum München analyzed the metabolic and physiological functions of different sections of the gut. The aim was to define a comprehensive list of characteristic metabolites for the physiological gut sections and to quantify the selected pathways. They investigated the metabolic composition of seven different gut sections using high-resolution NMR spectroscopy, which returned a comprehensive metabolite overview with a single analytical measurement per sample.

The created list delivers characteristic metabolites, describes metabolite changes along the gut, and highlights the site specificity for selected metabolite pathways. The largest metabolic changes happened in the cecum, where the microbiome produces microbial metabolites. Furthermore, the evolution of bile acids along the gut was shown and their site-specific conversion was described. A metabolic basis was established for future investigations of metabolic perturbations, which can be introduced by dietary challenges or gene knockouts and provide valuable information for tailored study design and targeted sample collection.

These results provide the fundamental analytical and metabolic basis for the investigation of the gut metabolism. Better knowledge of site-specific gastrointestinal metabolism will lead to improved understanding of systemic diseases such as diabetes and obesity and advance dietary, drug intervention and surgical procedure outcomes and guide the way to new therapeutic targets.

Original publication:
Heinzmann SS, Schmitt-Kopplin P. Deep metabotyping of the murine gastrointestinal tract for the visualization of digestion and microbial metabolism. doi: 10.1021/acs.jproteome.5b00034. J Proteome Res. May 1, 2015

Link to the publication:
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.jproteome.5b00034