Project: Metabolic HEALTH through nutrition, microbiota and tryptophan bioMARKers
WHAT: HEALTHMARK will investigate the complex associations between the gut microbiota, tryptophan availability and bioactive microbial metabolites of tryptophan, and diet and metabolic health. Phenotypes of obesity with low visceral adipose tissue as well as metabolically healthy obese phenotypes will be used to characterize metabolic health. The gut microbiome will be looked at as a potential reservoir of health-related biomarkers, both in terms of composition and function (microbial metabolites) open to modulation by diet.
WHO: HEALTHMARK is an interdisciplinary and transnational project. The project comprises five partners from four EU countries with complementary expertise and exemplars of scientific excellence in this research area. These partners are Ute Nöthlings, University of Bonn, Germany (Coordinator); Monique M.B. Breteler, German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases, Germany; John F Cryan, the APC Microbiome Institute at University College Cork/ Teagasc, Moorepark Food Research Centre, Ireland; Fulvio Mattivi, Fondazione Edmund Mach, Italy and Lucile Capuron, Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique, France.
HOW: HEALTHMARK will identify, replicate and validate biomarkers in.existing human population studies - the DONALD, the Rhineland, the Obesity, and the MUCOL Study - which have dietary information, information on body composition, and biological samples. Gut microbiota composition will be assessed by 16S ribosomal RNA sequencing. The project will use targeted and untargeted metabolomic approaches to determine levels of relevant precursors, metabolites and bioactives in blood and urine samples.
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