domingo, 14 de diciembre de 2014

Microbiome: The bacterial tightrope : Nature : Nature Publishing Group

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Microbiome: The bacterial tightrope : Nature : Nature Publishing Group



Microbiome: The bacterial tightrope

Nature
 
516,
 
S14–S16
 
 
doi:10.1038/516S14a
Published online
 
Imbalances in gut bacteria have been implicated in the progression from liver disease to cancer. This insight opens the way to preventive treatments.
Katie Scott
In 2012, Eiji Hara was studying the effects of a high-fat diet on cancer risk in mice. Researchers had known for many years that obesity was associated with liver cancer; Hara wanted to find out why. After deep study of the connection, he found something unanticipated: a link to bacteria living in the gut1.
“We never expected a connection with the microbiome,” says Hara, who is a biologist at the Japanese Foundation for Cancer Research in Tokyo. Yet when he and his colleagues exposed obese mice to a carcinogen that normally causes liver cancer and then gave them antibiotics, they found that killing the bacteria had a protective effect: the animals did not develop the disease.

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