Date : 10/03/2011

Laboratory
MICALIS Institute (Food and Gut Microbiology for Human Health)
UMR1319 INRA AMIPEM Team
Domaine de Vilvert Building 440
78350 Jouy-en-Josas
Website
Main discipline : Molecular Biology
Lab director : Stéphane Aymerich


PhD Supervisor
Philippe Gérard
email : This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
phone : +33.1 34 65 24 28

Subjects
1.: obesity, metabolic syndrome
2.: gut microbiota
3.: germfree animals

Tools and methodologies
1.: metagenomics
2.: metabolomics
3.: statistics

Summary of lab's interests

Micalis Institute (Food and Gut Microbiology for human Health), has been created in January 2010 via the association of different INRA laboratories in Jouy-en-Josas, France and comprises more than 350 peole. The host team, headed by P. Gérard, focuses on the involvement of the gut microbiota in human health and disease. The team has expertise in microbiology and molecular biology and possesses unique germfree and gnotobiotic animal facilities aimed at breeding germfree rats and mice that can be colonized with selected complex or defined microbiota allowing the in vivo study of the impact of gut microbiota on host physiology. The team has also expertise in animal physiology including measurement of parameters linked to obesity and inflammation, e.g., glucose tolerance, endotoxemia, gut permeability, cytokine and chemokine expression levels as measured by real-time PCR. Micalis Institue also hosts a sequencing platform specialized in gut microbiota metagenomics.

Summary of project

The gut microbiota, all the bacteria residing in our gastrointestinal tract, comprises several hundreds of species ad is specific of each individual. Recently, its probable involvement in obesity has been revealed. Indeed, germfree mice (devoid of gut microbiota) are resistant to obesity and metabolic disorders induced by a high-fat diet. The objectives of this thesis will be to study and establish the role of the gut microbiota in the development of obesity and associated disorders. For this purpose, conventional mice will receive a control or a high-fat diet. Among the latter, certain mice will develop an important obesity whereas other will stay lean. The mechanisms explaining these different responses to a high-fat diet are currently unknown. We will associate a molecular analysis of the gut microbiota to a metabolomic analysis of plasma, urine and feces. These metabolomoic analyses will also be performed on germfree mice receiving the different diets. This project should precise the contribution of the gut microbiota in the propensity to develop or resist to a diet-induded obesity and allow the identification of bacteria or bacterial metabolites associated to these phenotypes.

28 Interdisciplinarity of the project

This project is positioned at the interface of several disciplines including gut microbiology, animal physiology, gnotobiology, metagenomics, metabolomics. Moreover, as large quantities of data will be generated from metagenomics and metabolomics, statistical analyses (in particular multivariate analysis) will be a keypoint of the project.

Available funding for this project

A part of the project will be funded with a grant obtained from CNIEL (Centre National Interprofessionnel de l'Economie Laitière)