A preliminary study on the effects of human microRNAs on gut microbiota

Abstract

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) play a key role in disease manifestation, metabolic processes and immune regulation and modulation of the host. MiRNAs can be found in abundance in fecal samples of humans and are present in intracellular, extracellular fluid and extracellular vesicles. Abundance of miRNAs is found to be in ileal lumen as compared to the colon, whereas gut microbiota is more in colon, not in ileum. Still the effect of miRNA is found where the gut microbiota is more, which is by co-localizing with the nucleic acid of the bacteria. Some human miRNAs can regulate the non-coding RNAs in bacterial species like Escherichia coli and Fusobacterium nucleatum by entering into the bacterial cell in the intestine. By repressing the activity of the noncoding RNAs of intestinal bacterial species, human miRNAs bring about the increase or decrease in population of gut microbiota. With the change in the population of the certain microbiota species in the intestine, the host becomes more susceptible to the dysbiosis and becomes vulnerable to intestinal localization of pathogenic bacteria causing diseases like inflammatory bowel disease. With the usage of bioinformatics tool, this study has deepened into interaction of human miRNA and E. coli non-coding RNA, thereby opening up a detailed analysis into interaction of host with its gut microbiome and how the interaction is responsible for diseases in host.