The human gut bacteria Christensenellaceae are widespread, heritable, and associated with health

Abstract

The Christensenellaceae, a recently described family in the phylum Firmicutes, is emerging as an important player in human health. The relative abundance of Christensenellaceae in the human gut is inversely related to host body mass index (BMI) in different populations and multiple studies, making its relationship with BMI the most robust and reproducible link between the microbial ecology of the human gut and metabolic disease reported to date. The family is also related to a healthy status in a number of other different disease contexts, including obesity and inflammatory bowel disease. In addition, Christensenellaceae is highly heritable across multiple populations, although specific human genes underlying its heritability have so far been elusive. Further research into the microbial ecology and metabolism of these bacteria should reveal mechanistic underpinnings of their host-health associations and enable their development as therapeutics.

Fig. 1

Cell morphology of Christensenella minuta. C. minuta (DSM22607) was grown in supplemented brain heart infusion to reach full turbidity, approximately 72 h. Cells were washed twice and subsequently resuspended in phosphate buffered saline prior to submission to the electron microscopy facility at the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology

Fig. 2

Phylogenetic relatedness of Christensenellaceae. Full length 16S rRNA gene sequences were obtained from NCBI and aligned using MAFFT. Accession numbers for each sequence are provided in parentheses. Bootstrap values (> 50%) are expressed as a percentage for 100 iterations. A maximum likelihood tree was built using RaxML with a general time reversible evolutionary model, and B. thetaiotaomicron was selected as the outgroup for rooting the tree. The scale bar represents substitutions per site