Establishment of in vitro gut model for the evaluation of effect of food on Japanese gut microbiota
Forty trillions of bacterial cells consisting of several hundreds of bacterial species inhabit human digestive tract while growing by fermenting residue of unabsorbed foods. This gut microbiota has a great influence on host health. Thus, life scientists seek for the way of maintaining of healthy microbiota or improving of unhealthy microbiota, notably via food or pre/probiotics. However, since human gut microbiota differs among individuals, it is difficult to consistent data. Therefore, we capture the pattern of Japanese gut microbiota and realize them in vitro. Then, by using the in vitro gut model, we establish evaluation system of effect of food on gut microbiota.
Indeed, Japanese gut microbiota were classified into 7 types, each linking with host dietary and life styles and correlating with productivity of short chain fatty acids and profile of bile acids. Therefore, we gain an idea to construct bacterial cocktails representing these seven microbiotas by using predominant species in each microbiome type. Especially, we use our own technology to culture difficult-to-culture species by using conjugated bile acids (ref.1 and 2). We plan to evaluate the effect of food components on each gut microbiota, separately.（Fig 1）
