Pretoria - Africa’s overlooked, understudied microbiomes have huge potential for microbially derived therapeutics, and possibly even new antibiotics.
Before the continent can tap into these possibilities, however, a vast amount of research needs to be done to close the knowledge deficit.
“Data on African microbiomes is quite low and in terms of the knowledge produced, we are on the back foot. There are a lot of areas that need to be studied because microbes are at the centre of everything.
“We cannot achieve the Sustainable Development Goals without focusing on microbes,” said Professor Thulani Makhalanyane, Department of Science and Innovation/National Research Foundation South African Research Chair in Marine Microbiomics in the Department of Biochemistry, Genetics and Microbiology at the University of Pretoria (UP).
Homing in on the human gut microbiome, which has been shown to directly influence physical and mental health, including cardiovascular, digestive, endocrine and neurological health, Makhalanyane said international research has shown the positive impact of diets high in fibre and fermented foods on the human gut microbiome – and therefore on human health.
“A lot of these studies have often been done in populations that do not necessarily have diets such as the ones we have in Africa and do not have the extent of diversity that we have.
“So by screening African populations, we’ve got a higher potential of finding novel prebiotics, probiotics and other antibiotics just by harnessing the power of our gut microbiomes,” he explained.
He singled out two fermented foods widely eaten in South Africa, amasi and mageu, as having the potential for gut microbiome-derived therapeutics that could be used to treat people with gastric ulceritis and other gut microbiome disturbances.
Makhalanyane said the little research that has been done to date on African human gut microbiomes has produced exciting results. A UP project conducted several years ago compared the gut microbes of people in Pretoria, where processed foods are commonly consumed, to those of people living in rural locations in Venda.
The results showed higher levels of microbial diversity and interaction in the gut of rural networks than in urban networks.
“This indicated a lot more synergies in the gut microbiomes of rural people, which is a proxy for better health,” Makhalanyane said.
The research also sought to understand whether differences in microbial diversity were linked to functional differences, such as in resistance to antibiotics.
“There were a lot more resistance genes in the urban locations compared to the rural individuals,” he said. “This further confirms that a high-diversity ecosystem equates to more stability.”
The researchers also compared the gut microbiome data of rural and urban South Africans to data available in international databases. “This showed a high degree of novelty and high potential to explore the gut microbiomes of urban and rural individuals,” Makhalanyane said.
The scarcity of African human gut microbiome research points to a significant knowledge deficit, Makhalanyane said.
A recent general internet search for microbiome research papers yielded over 88 370 papers on the topic, while a search for African papers produced just over 400 papers.
Pretoria News