"Eating is what you eat" because gut bacteria have evolved

A team of researchers from the UK and Germany studied the microbiota of house mice and found that the genetic makeup of wild house mouse hosts has a significant impact on the composition of gut bacteria, and many species can be inherited from one generation

They studied the link between the gut microbiome and genes associated with human diseases, such as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), and found that these genes do cluster in genomic regions

The study, published in the journal eLife, analyzed the abundance of gut bacteria in hybrid rat strains and studied the relationship between

Researchers from the Faculty of Evolutionary Medicine at Keele University and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology (MPI-EB), led by Professor John Baines and Dr Leslie Turner of the University of Bath, studied the hybrid offspring of house mice whose genes are more diverse

Mice are fed the same diet, so similarities or differences in the microbiome may be attributed to genes, not the environment

Dr Turner, a lecturer at the Milner Centre for Evolution at the University of Bath, said: "Previous mapping studies of the gut microbiome of mice have been based primarily on laboratory inbreeding strains that have limited genetic diversity and lack some native microbes

Although genetic mapping of the gut microbiota of mice has previously been studied, this is the first time it has been conducted

Dr Turner added: "Researching lab mice and wild mice is a bit like studying dogs and wolves

Lead author Dr Shauni Doms, from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology in Germany, said: "Our genetic map shows that more than 400 gene regions in about 120 different bacterial taxa in the microbiome are associated

Dr Turner said: "Our study establishes for the first time a relationship between

Shauni Doms, Hanna Fokt, Malte Christoph Rü hlemann, Cecilia J Chung, Axel Kuenstner, Saleh M Ibrahim, Andre Franke, Leslie M Turner, John F Baines.