Regulation of life span by the gut microbiota in the short-lived African turquoise killifish

Abstract

Gut bacteria occupy the interface between the organism and the external environment, contributing to homeostasis and disease. Yet, the causal role of the gut microbiota during host aging is largely unexplored. Here, using the African turquoise killifish (Nothobranchius furzeri), a naturally short-lived vertebrate, we show that the gut microbiota plays a key role in modulating vertebrate life span. Recolonizing the gut of middle-age individuals with bacteria from young donors resulted in life span extension and delayed behavioral decline. This intervention prevented the decrease in microbial diversity associated with host aging and maintained a young-like gut bacterial community, characterized by overrepresentation of the key genera Exiguobacterium, Planococcus, Propionigenium and Psychrobacter. Our findings demonstrate that the natural microbial gut community of young individuals can causally induce long-lasting beneficial systemic effects that lead to life span extension in a vertebrate model.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.27014.001

The African turquoise killifish: A research organism to study vertebrate aging and diapause

“…( 2016), Martino, Ma and Leulier ( 2017), Smith et al. ( 2017), Tropini, Earle, Huang and Sonnenburg ( 2017); excretory system: King and Goldstein (1985), Buechner (2002), Gautam, Verma and Tapadia ( 2017); sleep and circadian system: Raizen et al. ( 2008); Trojanowski and Raizen (2016); Miyazaki, Liu and Hayashi ( 2017); others: Micchelli and Perrimon (2006), Ohlstein and Spradling (2006), Chaturvedi, Reichert, Gunage and VijayRaghavan ( 2017), Gunage, Dhanyasi, Reichert and VijayRaghavan (2017)…”

“…A good example is the influence of gut microbiota on lifespan. A recent study using the turquoise killifish to address this question has revealed that not only the gut microbiota dynamically evolves with the host at different ages, but the host's lifespan can also be effectively extended by acquiring microbiota from the younger gut (Smith et al., 2017). The killifish short lifespan plays a key role to allow systematically characterize and manipulate the gut microbiota at different ages, and then assess their impact on the lifespan of the same individuals (Smith et al., 2017).…”

“…A recent study using the turquoise killifish to address this question has revealed that not only the gut microbiota dynamically evolves with the host at different ages, but the host's lifespan can also be effectively extended by acquiring microbiota from the younger gut (Smith et al., 2017). The killifish short lifespan plays a key role to allow systematically characterize and manipulate the gut microbiota at different ages, and then assess their impact on the lifespan of the same individuals (Smith et al., 2017). With the turquoise killifish and its compressed lifespan, some burning questions about aging can start to be systematically examined, including the impact of the timing of sexual maturation, the tradeoff between reproduction and lifespan, the role of specific nutrients in regulating aging, and even the importance of social interactions in the aging process.…”

Functions of the Microbiota for the Physiology of Animal Metaorganisms

“…Transferring the microbiome of old mice to young germ-free mice led to upregulation of the proinflammatory cytokine tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α), dysregulation of pathways involved in the immune response such as T cell differentiation and B cell development, and recognition of microbes by pattern recognition receptors. Additionally, levels of Akkermansia , TM7 bacteria, and Proteobacteria , all of which support inflammaging, were increased after microbiome transfer [16]. Even cohousing of germ-free with old mice resulted in an increased level of proinflammatory cytokines in the blood [18].…”

“…In a microbiome transfer experiment from young fish to middle-aged individuals, a lifespan-extending effect was observed. Importantly, the fish also aged more healthily, which was observed by increased motility, a sign of being healthy [16]. …”