Location: Dairy and Functional Foods Research
Project Number: 8072-41000-108-001-S
Project Type: Non-Assistance Cooperative Agreement
Start Date: Oct 1, 2016
End Date: Sep 30, 2021
Objective:
1. To characterize how diet influences the population and structure of human gut microbiota.
2. To promote the development of innovative dietary guidelines, health care, and treatment.
Approach:
Samples will be harvested from a Simulator of the Human Intestinal Microbial Ecosystem (SHIME) at different incubation times. Samples will be analyzed for short chain fatty acids, long chain fatty acids, amino acids, and other low molecular weight molecules that participate in the general metabolic process of gut microbiota, using LC/MASS, GC/MASS, and NMR, and other available means.
In addition, bacterial population count of samples will be determined using 16S rRNA next generation DNA sequencing, and sequence data processing. Analytical methods of QIIME (Quantitative Insights Into Microbial Ecology), Operational Taxonomic Units (OTUs), and weighted and unweighted UniFrac distances will be applied.
