POSTBIOTICS

The rapid increase in the prevalence of overweight and obesity in Western countries leads to the urgent need to develop alternative therapies against its progression. However, these new therapies should focus on treating those factors involved in the development of metabolic disorders associated with excess weight, such as insulin resistance, inflammation, cardiovascular risk or non-alcoholic fatty liver disease development .

Because of their importance in the homeostatic regulation of energy metabolism, changes in gut microbial proportions or dysbiosis may be related to metabolic alterations present in obesity-related diseases. However, despite significant advances in recent years in the understanding of the role of intestinal microorganisms in the metabolic health of the host, most of the relationships between bacteria in the intestinal tract, as well as the mechanisms by which they exert their beneficial or detrimental functions, are still unknown.

In this sense, an in-depth study of the bacterial metabolites associated with metabolic syndrome-related dysbiosis would allow us to identify the postbiotics that represent a greater or lesser metabolic risk in an individual. This panel of postbiotics could give rise to diagnostic tools to predict the greater or lesser Degree of dysbiosis in a subject, as well as to associate it with the risk of suffering from other metabolic disorders associated with obesity and metabolic syndrome, such as excess adiposity, insulin resistance, fatty liver or inflammation, among others.

On the other hand, the modulation of the human intestinal microbiota through the use of food ingredients with prebiotic activities could be a therapeutic strategy to mitigate the characteristic alterations of the metabolic syndrome, promoting the proliferation of those bacterial species that produce metabolites or postbiotics beneficial to the host due to their antiobesogenic, antidiabetic or anti-inflammatory properties.

This project focuses on generating new knowledge on the role of gut microbiota dysbiosis in the development of obesity, identifying those metabolites of bacterial origin (postbiotics) associated with the different parameters of the metabolic syndrome, together with the assessment of the anti-obesity properties of prebiotics and postbiotics as potential therapy for the prevention of the different metabolic alterations characteristic of obesity.

Different metabolomic, lipidomic and metagenomic analyses will be developed, along with in vitro and in vivo models, including screening in C. elegans, studying mechanisms of action in rodents, and assessment therapeutics in a human intervention study.