12.01.09
Gastroenterologists at Rush University Medical Center will chart the presence of microorganisms found in the gut and explore how microbial imbalances may impact diseases like breast cancer in a new study funded by more than $1 million in grants from the U.S. Department of Defense and National Institutes of Health (NIH). “Similar to what has been done with human DNA, we want to map out the composition of these microorganisms from their DNA and analyze how they correlate to diseases and changes within the immune system,” said Dr. Ece Mutlu, gastroenterologist at Rush and principal investigator of the study. “If we are able to find the microbes responsible for particular diseases, it may increase the likelihood of developing new diagnostic tests and treatments for diseases like breast cancer.” Unlike the more than 20,000 genes found in the human genome, the bacterial genomes, known as the microbiome, can rapidly evolve under the pressure of changing environmental factors. Therefore, changes in the gastrointestinal microbiota have the potential to explain rises in breast cancer incidence, which are difficult to attribute to alterations in the human genome alone. Researchers are also analyzing the effects of the gut microbiome on carcinogens and sex hormone metabolism based on evidence that the gastrointestinal microbiota has an impact on estrogen balance and is important in estrogen metabolism.