NC3Rs: National Centre for the Replacement Refinement & Reduction of Animals in Research
PhD Studentship

In vitro and in silico models of gut bacterial diversity and its impacts on human health

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At a glance

Completed
Award date
September 2012 - January 2017
Grant amount
£120,000
Principal investigator
Professor Timothy Barraclough

Co-investigator(s)

Institute
Imperial College London

R

  • Replacement
Read the abstract
View the grant profile on GtR

Contents

Application abstract

Gut bacteria play a vital role in human digestion and protection from disease, yet understanding of how these communities influence host function has been limited, and reliant on experiments on rodents. This project will devise new in vitro and in silico models to replace the use of rodents and to increase understanding of interactions between gut bacterial diversity and human cell function, focusing on the fermentation of fibre and its effects on human cells.

Publications

  1. Johnson LP et al. (2015). Prebiotics modulate the effects of antibiotics on gut microbial diversity and functioning in vitro. Nutrients 7(6):4480-4497. doi: 10.3390/nu7064480
  2. Frost GS et al. (2014). Impacts of plant-based foods in ancestral hominin diets on the metabolism and function of gut microbiota in vitro. mBio 5(3):e00853-14. doi: 10.1128/mBio.00853-14