Brett Finlay
Faculty of Medicine scientists have created an animal model for malnutrition, replicating the imbalance of intestinal bacteria associated with the difficult-to-treat disease.
“Everyone thought that you simply needed to feed people and they’d be fine, but it didn’t work,” said Brett Finlay, a Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. “The gut bacteria model allows us to figure out what’s going on and to think about ways to fix it.”
Malnutrition, which affects millions of people worldwide and is responsible for one-fifth of deaths in children under the age of five, can be difficult to treat because it affects the good bacteria that live in the gut. People suffering from malnutrition often show signs of a disease known as environmental enteropathy, an inflammatory disorder of the small intestine and is likely caused by ingesting pathogenic fecal bacteria early in life from a contaminated environment. This shifts the balance of the original healthy bacteria in the gut and leads to poor absorption of nutrients.
The study, published today in Nature Communications, explains how the research team developed a mouse model to reproduce the symptoms of environmental enteropathy and malnourishment.
“We were able to see how a malnourished diet has a strong, measurable impact on the microbes in the small intestine,” said PhD student Eric Brown. “This new model gives us the opportunity to examine the impact of malnutrition on gut microbiology and assess the role of infections.”
People suffering from malnutrition are much more vulnerable to pathogenic bacterial infections like salmonella and E. coli. Malnourished children can also experience impaired cognitive development and stunted growth. With an animal model, Dr. Finlay said researchers will be better able to test treatments and understand how malnutrition impacts a child’s development.
“Treatments and vaccines created in developed nations and tested on healthy people often don’t work in malnourished populations,” said Dr. Finlay, a Distinguished Professor at UBC’s Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies. “People suffering from malnutrition respond differently.”