Identification of microbial and cellular biomarkers for Short Bowel Syndrome in a combined in vitro-in vivo study

Short bowel syndrome (SBS) is a severe intestinal disorder that occurs in patients upon small bowel resection. While rare in prevalence, SBS severely affects the patient’s quality of life. SBS-microbe is a multidisciplinary translational project aimed at expanding our knowledge on SBS pathogenesis and the mechanisms for resection-induced physiological adaptations, through the identification of microbial, metabolic and cellular hallmarks. It integrates a combination of SHIME, as dynamic gastrointestinal (GI) model, with epithelial cellular models and in vivo patients’ data, to gain a better mechanistic insight in disease progression, severity and the interplay with the microbiota. It may additionally propose attractive therapeutic strategies and provide valuable tools to address physiological aspects for both healthy and pathological conditions, without the recourse to animal models. Hosted in the Center for Microbial Ecology and Technology at Ghent University, this proposal includes a secondment with SBS medical and metagenomics experts at KULeuven. The applicant’s microbiology and cell biology expertise will be expanded with reactor engineering skills, facilitating the development of novel in vitro models to address host-microbiota interactions in a simulated SBS environment. The secondment at KULeuven offers the opportunity to gain a better insight in cohort composition and identify determinants that potentially underlie the patient’s clinical condition, which is crucial for the mechanistic in vitro work.

Through the development of a GI and epithelial cellular models, SBS-microbe aims at identifying key microbial and cellular signatures occurring after intestinal resection. Additionally, this will enable the proof-of-concept that targeting specific microbial and metabolic markers may significantly empower the intestinal homeostasis in SBS and ameliorate the quality of life of these patients.