Methane emission of humans is explained by dietary habits, host genetics, local formate availability and a uniform archaeome

Abstract

SummaryArchaea are responsible for methane production in the human gastrointestinal tract. Twenty percent of the Western populations exhale substantial amounts of this gas. The underlying principle determining high or low methane emission and its effect on human health was still not sufficiently understood.In this study, we analysed the gastrointestinal microbiome, archaeome, metagenome, metabolome, and eating behaviour of 100 healthy young adults. We correlated high levels of human methane emission (5-75 ppm) with a 1000-fold increase in Methanobrevibacter smithii. This archaeon co-occurred with a bacterial community specialised on dietary fibre degradation, which included members of the Ruminococcaceae and Christensenellaceae. Methane production was negatively affected by high vitamin B12 and fat intake of the subjects, and was positively associated with increased formate concentrations in the gut. Overall, methane emission is explained by dietary habits, host genetics, local metabolite availability and microbiome/archaeome composition, emphasizing the unique biology of high methane-emitters which has potentially positive impact on human health.Abstract FigureGraphical abstract:

Next Generation Microbiome Research: Identification of Keystone Species in the Metabolic Regulation of Host-Gut Microbiota Interplay

“…Empirical (Centanni et al, 2018) Highly prevalent human breast milk (Lugli et al, 2020) Christensenella minuta Stimulate ecosystem diversity (Mazier et al, 2021); acetate producer (Morotomi et al, 2012); BSH activity (Déjean et al, 2021) Co-occurrence networks (Goodrich et al, 2014;Kumpitsch et al, 2020 ahead of publication) Empirical (Ruaud et al, 2020;Mazier et al, 2021) Obesity and metabolic diseases (Goodrich et al, 2014); Crohn's disease (Pascal et al, 2017) Faecalibacterium prausnitzii Butyrate producer Presence/absence (Leylabadlo et al, 2020) Crohn's disease (Sokol et al, 2008), Ulcerative Colitis (Varela et al, 2013) Methanobrevibacter smithii Produces methane from H 2 and acetate Empirical and co-occurrence networks (Goodrich et al, 2014;Kumpitsch et al, 2020 ahead of publication)…”

Human gut metatranscriptome changes induced by a fermented milk product are associated with improved tolerance to a flatulogenic diet

“…Since methanogenesis was found upregulated on responders and Methanobrevibacter smithii is known as the main producer of methane [36] , we hypothesized that this species has an increased metabolic activity. Using MSP minner, we uncovered two MSPs identified as M. smithii (msp_0560 and msp_0871) and performed a DE and GSEA analyses.…”