Writing in the journal Microbiome Research Reports, the scientists detail how the fecal samples of lean participants indicate the co-existence of more than one Akkermansia phylotype or species and that this finding “paves the way for additional Akkermansia species-based interventions to provide health benefits,” the researchers wrote.
The new species is called Akkermansia massiliensis, and it was shown to be the second most prevalent Akkermansia species in the human gut behind Akkermansia muciniphila.
“[In our study], you could see that the prevalence of A. muciniphila was in 82% of obese adults and in 87.7% of lean adults,” said Lori Lathrop Stern, director of medical affairs at IFF Health Sciences, of the study participants. “But when you look at A. massiliensis, it was in 26% of the lean cohort, and none of our obese participants had it.”
Lathrop Stern said IFF will progress A. massiliensis to human safety studies and then human efficacy studies.
Study details
The scientists examined the prevalence and abundance of several species of Akkermansia from fecal data collected by the American Gut Product, which involved crowd-sourced sampling of adults; and the IsoMic clinical study, which was made up of healthy adults with BMI of 18.5-25 kg/m2 from five ethnicities within the United States.
The researchers also explored data from the Next Generation Probiotics for Metabolic Health clinical study obese cohort where no data where “the colonization of A. massiliensis was not detected in any of the individuals,” the researchers noted. The participants included lean (BMI 18-25 kg/m2) and obese (BMI 27.5- 35 kg/m2) women residing in Finland.
The researchers added: “Interestingly, only a small percentage of individuals were co-colonized with both A. muciniphila and A. massiliensis, suggesting that these two species may be mutually exclusive.”
Additionally, the scientists discovered A. massiliensis produces vitamin B12, which is important for short chain fatty acid production.
“A. massiliensis might not only be impacting the health of humans, but it might also be helping the health of the ecosystem,” Lathrop Stern said.
Future research
Science has shown several possible connections between Akkermansia and obesity.
“Research on Akkermansia is moving beyond association studies, with research increasingly focusing on the elucidation of the mechanisms underlying efficacy,” the researchers wrote.
The link that exists between gut microbiota and obesity dates as far back as a 2006 study by Jeffrey Gordon and his group at Washington University in St. Louis. That team suggested that microbial populations in the gut are different between obese and lean people. When obese people lost weight, their microbiota reverted to that of a lean person.
Akkermansia is also known to produce nutrients that feed intestinal cells responsible for producing the intestinal mucus layer. This helps maintain a healthy intestinal barrier function and controls gut permeability and low-grade inflammation in the gut.
Lathrop Stern said IFF Health Sciences is focused on the future of digestive, metabolic and immune health as fundamental components of R&D and the development of probiotics which might contain the new strain of A. massiliensis.
“There’s an intersection between all those worlds,” she said. “We know A. massiliensis is in the digestive tract and we probably know it has some cardiometabolic benefit based on our animal trials so far. We just have to demonstrate that in humans.”
Source: Microbiome Research Reports
2024;3:37 doi: 10.20517/mrr.2024.28
“Akkermansia beyond muciniphila - emergence of new species Akkermansia massiliensis sp. nov.”
Authors: Ritesh Kumar et al.
