The Feed Enzymes Engineering Group of Institute of Animal Sciences, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences systematically elaborated the effects of the feed enzymes on the gut microbial flora and proposed a new theory to modulate the gut microbiota by making use of the enzymes, which sets up the theoretical foundation for choosing and applying enzymes in this new area. This perspective paper has been published in Trends of Microbiology recently.
In the livestock industry, many enzymes have been routinely added to the feeds, aiming to promote the feed conversion rate and growth performance of the animals. More and more studies indicate that the effects of enzymes are often related to the change of the gut microbiota. However, the theory and corresponding researches regarding the use of enzymes to specifically modulate the gut microbiota for purposed healing of the human diseases or promoting the healthy breeding of animals have been long overlooked.
The authors analyzed the profound effects of the orally taken enzymes on the gut microbial flora. They summarized three major ways of the enzymes that can affect the gut microbiota, including (i) killing the gut microbes, (ii) stimulating growth of specific gut microbes, and (iii) interfering with the microbial networking (Figure 1).
They also elaborated the advantages of enzymes on modulating the gut microbiota and their enormous potentials on curing the human diseases as well as in the livestock industries. The challenges and corresponding solutions associated with how to choose and utilize the enzymes were analyzed. Most importantly, the authors proposed a new theory that employs targeting enzyme for precision modulation of the gut microbiota.
The research has been funded by the National Key Research and Development Program of China, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, and the State Key Laboratory of Animal Nutrition, Institute of Animal Sciences, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences.
Paper link：https://www.cell.com/trends/microbiology/fulltext/S0966-842X(22)00003-8