Can we use bacteriocins to improve gut health?

Many bacteria produce antimicrobial compounds to help them compete in mixed communities.
Antimicrobial peptides called bacteriocins from food and dairy strains have already been
exploited successfully to prevent food poisoning or mastitis. Gene clusters producing these
bacteriocins are increasingly being discovered in gut bacteria or gastrointestinal
metagenomes. The gut microbiome is known to play a critical role in our health and disease
and has been associated with obesity, diabetes, colon cancers and the development of
cognitive disorders via the gut-brain-axis. We want to determine whether bacteriocins have the
potential to modulate the complex human gut microbiome and provide a novel approach to
shape microbiomes towards a healthy outcome. This project will build on past and current
projects on bacteriocin discovery, in vitro colon model fermentations and gut microbiome and
metabolome analysis to investigate bacteriocin expression in gut conditions and the effect on
the composition and function of the microbiota of both healthy and patients with
gastrointestinal disorders.