1. Academic Validation
  2. Lactobacillus maintains healthy gut mucosa by producing L-Ornithine

Lactobacillus maintains healthy gut mucosa by producing L-Ornithine

  • Commun Biol. 2019 May 8;2:171. doi: 10.1038/s42003-019-0424-4.
Houbao Qi  # 1 2 3 Yuanyuan Li  # 1 2 3 Huan Yun  # 1 2 3 Tong Zhang  # 4 5 Yugang Huang  # 1 2 3 Jiang Zhou 1 2 3 Hui Yan 1 2 3 Jianmei Wei 1 2 3 Yingquan Liu 1 2 3 Zhiqian Zhang 1 2 3 Yunhuan Gao 1 2 3 Yongzhe Che 2 3 Xiaomin Su 1 2 3 Dashuai Zhu 3 Yuan Zhang 1 2 3 Jin Zhong 4 5 Rongcun Yang 1 2 3
Affiliations

Affiliations

  • 1 1State Key Laboratory of Medicinal Chemical Biology, Nankai University, 300071 Tianjin, China.
  • 2 2Key Laboratory of Bioactive Materials Ministry of Education, Nankai University, 300071 Tianjin, China.
  • 3 3Department of Immunology, School of Medicine, Nankai University, 300071 Tianjin, China.
  • 4 4State Key Laboratory of Microbial Resources, Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100101 Beijing, China.
  • 5 5School of Life Science, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100039 Beijing, China.
  • # Contributed equally.
Abstract

Gut mucosal layers are crucial in maintaining the gut barrier function. Gut microbiota regulate homeostasis of gut mucosal layer via gut immune cells such as RORγt (+) IL-22(+) ILC3 cells, which can influence the proliferation of mucosal cells and the production of Mucin. However, it is unclear how gut microbiota execute this regulation. Here we show that lactobacilli promote gut mucosal formation by producing L-Ornithine from arginine. L-Ornithine increases the level of Aryl Hydrocarbon Receptor ligand L-kynurenine produced from tryptophan metabolism in gut epithelial cells, which in turn increases RORγt (+)IL-22(+) ILC3 cells. Human REG3A transgenic mice show an increased proportion of L-Ornithine producing lactobacilli in the gut contents, suggesting that gut epithelial REG3A favors the expansion of L-Ornithine producing lactobacilli. Our study implicates the importance of a crosstalk between arginine metabolism in Lactobacilli and tryptophan metabolism in gut epithelial cells in maintaining gut barrier.

Keywords

Bacterial host response; Mucosal immunology.

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