The Fascinating World of Microbiota: Unveiling the Influence of Gut Bacteria on Identity and Health

2023-11-27 17:52:21

A few months ago, I wanted to join the project “ French Guts » led by INRAE ​​and APHP. The goal of this project is to sample, “biobank” and map what 100,000 healthy French people have in their stomachs, by 2027, to understand how their microbiota tells our tricolor identities, because in a pea of ​​our feces, we find more than 1000 billion microorganisms which form a unique signature specific to each individual. These microbes in us tell us how we were born, what we eat and many other things. Researcher Joël Doré tells us: “ It is said that there is as much diversity in an intestinal microbiota as there are stars in the universe. And so, we humans are fundamentally microbial. This awareness must be accompanied by lifestyle choices that are beneficial to our microbes. »

Jacky Nizard, Professor of Gynecology-Obstetrics at Salepétrière Hospital even explains: “ At the time of vaginal birth, the baby will descend into the genital tract and swallow in its path all the germs in this area, germs of the vaginal and digestive flora because the female anatomy means that the vagina is next to it. of the anus. When born, it will swallow large mouthfuls of bacteria, this welcome cocktail which will initiate the diversity of its digestive flora. This is the beginning of life. (…). But it doesn’t stop there, and there are many things that will influence the microbiota throughout life.

Every year, unfortunately, our Western lifestyles cause us to lose bacterial diversity, which Joël Doré regrets: “ When we made these comparisons systematically between Western populations or those with an urban lifestyle and that of hunter-gatherers, we were able to document that Western populations have potentially lost 50% of the richness and diversity of the intestinal microbiota.. »

In previous shows, I have often been interested in the little-known or invisible universes of our societies, and in what they can stir in our imaginations or say regarding our current changing identities. In this series, I decided to delve into the proper meaning at the heart of what is invisible to us, that is to say in our intestinal flora, to see what it says regarding our identities and our relationship to otherness. And I decided to compare my Western microbiota to that of a Tanzanian hunter-gatherer.

An experiment that can be carried out today thanks to recent advances in molecular biology, as biologist Pascale Cossart explains: “ Why do we talk regarding microbiota when we never talked regarding it before? But because before, we were not able to define it. And today we are able to define it better because we have tools that we did not have before thanks to metagenomics! »

A documentary by Elodie Maillotdirected by Véronique Samouiloff.

With :

François Joseph Lapointe: artist and biologist, he directs the molecular ecology and evolution laboratory at the University of Montreal

Joel DoreINRAE ​​Research Director and Scientific Director of MetaGenoPolis

Marc-André SelosseProfessor at the National Museum of Natural History and at the University Institute of France

Pascale Cossart, member of the Academy of Sciences and professor at the Pasteur Institute

Mathilde Poyet Biologist at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and co-founder of Global Microbiome Conservancy

Jacky NizardProfessor of Gynecology-Obstetrics at Salepétrière Hospital

Stanislav Dusko Ehrlichmicrobiologist, former scientific and technical manager of the MetaGenoPolis project

Thanks to the entire INRAE ​​MetaGenoPolis team, and particularly to Marine and Anne-Sophie Alvarez, Thanks to Françoise Levacon, Mathile Poyer at the Global Microbiome Conservancy Laboratory.

Mercihas the communications department of the AP-HP, to the entire team of the Gynecology-Obstetrics department of the Salpêtrière and to Professor Marc Dommergues, to Souleymane and his parents…

Thanks to our intern Adrien Clayette

READING: Lison Pinet

SOUND RECORDING: Victoria Aspert, Michaël Simon, Olivier Leroux and Christophe Papon

MIXING: Manon Houssin

DOCUMENTATION: Anne-Lise Signoret.

INA ARCHIVES: Mylène Touchais

To read and listen

Liens :

1701109796
#Intimate #geographies #microbes #episode #Microbiote #podcast #saddle

Leave a Replay