Host microRNAs Help Regulate, Talk Back to the Gut Microbiome

Epithelial cells lining the gastrointestinal tracts of mice secrete microRNA molecules that can enter and switch on genes that alter the growth of certain types of bacteria in the gut, according to Howard Weiner and Shirong Liu at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Mass., and their collaborators. “It's a very basic finding, but it opens up an area of interaction between microRNAs and the gut microbiome that hasn't been known before,” Weiner says. “Our findings highlight microRNAs as a strategy for manipulation of the microbiome that may affect the health of the host.” Details appeared 13 January 2016 in Cell Host & Microbe (doi.org/10.1016/j.chom.2015.12.005).