Publications by authors named "Rinse K Weersma"

Background: Acute cellular rejection (ACR) remains a common complication causing significant morbidity post-liver transplantation. Non-human leukocyte antigen (non-HLA) mismatches were associated with an increased risk of ACR in kidney transplantation. Therefore, we hypothesized that donor-recipient non-HLA genetic mismatch is associated with increased ACR incidence post-liver transplantation.

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There is growing interest in the potential exploitation of the gut microbiome as a diagnostic tool in medicine, but evidence supporting its clinical usefulness is scarce. An increasing number of commercial providers offer direct-to-consumer microbiome diagnostic tests without any consensus on their regulation or any proven value in clinical practice, which could result in considerable waste of individual and health-care resources and potential drawbacks in the clinical management of patients. We convened an international multidisciplinary expert panel to standardise best practices of microbiome testing for clinical implementation, including recommendations on general principles and minimum requirements for their provision, indications, pre-testing protocols, method of analyses, reporting of results, and potential clinical value.

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Emerging evidence suggests the gut microbiome's potential in predicting response to biologic treatments in patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). In this prospective study, we aimed to predict treatment response to vedolizumab and ustekinumab, integrating clinical data, gut microbiome profiles based on metagenomic sequencing, and untargeted fecal metabolomics. We aimed to identify predictive biomarkers and attempted to replicate microbiome-based signals from previous studies.

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Genetic susceptibility to metabolic associated fatty liver disease (MAFLD) is complex and poorly characterized. Accurate characterization of the genetic background of hepatic fat content would provide insights into disease etiology and causality of risk factors. We performed genome-wide association study (GWAS) on two noninvasive definitions of hepatic fat content: magnetic resonance imaging proton density fat fraction (MRI-PDFF) in 16,050 participants and fatty liver index (FLI) in 388,701 participants from the United Kingdom (UK) Biobank (UKBB).

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The gut microbiome has been recognised as a key component in the pathogenesis of inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD), and the wide range of metabolites produced by gut bacteria are an important mechanism by which the human microbiome interacts with host immunity or host metabolism. High-throughput metabolomic profiling and novel computational approaches now allow for comprehensive assessment of thousands of metabolites in diverse biomaterials, including faecal samples. Several groups of metabolites, including short-chain fatty acids, tryptophan metabolites and bile acids, have been associated with IBD.

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  • * Analysis involved 1,337 metagenomes from various transplant recipients and contrasted them with an additional 8,208 from the general population, showing two microbiome patterns correlated with both all-cause and specific mortality causes.
  • * Findings revealed that specific bacterial species and overall gut microbiome variations were associated with increased all-cause mortality, including risk of death from infections, cancers, and cardiovascular diseases.
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  • The gut microbiota plays a significant role in how cancer patients respond to immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs), but there’s no clear definition of harmful dysbiosis.* -
  • Researchers analyzed fecal samples from 245 non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients, identifying specific bacterial species groups associated with either resistance or response to ICIs, resulting in the creation of a topological score (TOPOSCORE).* -
  • This TOPOSCORE was further validated in additional patient cohorts and transformed into a 21-bacterial probe set for qPCR scoring, suggesting it could serve as a dynamic tool for diagnosing intestinal dysbiosis and tailoring microbiota-focused treatments.*
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Gut dysbiosis has been associated with impaired outcomes in liver and kidney transplant recipients, but the gut microbiome of lung transplant recipients has not been extensively explored. We assessed the gut microbiome in 64 fecal samples from end-stage lung disease patients before transplantation and 219 samples from lung transplant recipients after transplantation using metagenomic sequencing. To identify dysbiotic microbial signatures, we analyzed 243 fecal samples from age-, sex-, and BMI-matched healthy controls.

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Background: Inflammatory bowel diseases (IBDs) pose a significant challenge due to their diverse, often debilitating, and unpredictable clinical manifestations. The absence of prognostic tools to anticipate the future complications that require therapy intensification presents a substantial burden to patient private life and health. We aimed to explore whether the gut microbiome is a potential biomarker for future therapy intensification in a cohort of 90 IBD patients.

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Disrupted host-microbe interactions at the mucosal level are key to the pathophysiology of IBD. This study aimed to comprehensively examine crosstalk between mucosal gene expression and microbiota in patients with IBD. To study tissue-specific interactions, we perform transcriptomic (RNA-seq) and microbial (16S-rRNA-seq) profiling of 697 intestinal biopsies (645 derived from 335 patients with IBD and 52 from 16 non-IBD controls).

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The lack of standardization in the methods of DNA extraction from fecal samples represents the major source of experimental variation in the microbiome research field. In this study, we aimed to compare the metagenomic profiles and microbiome-phenotype associations obtained by applying two commercially available DNA extraction kits: the AllPrep DNA/RNA Mini Kit (APK) and the QIAamp Fast DNA Stool Mini Kit (FSK). Using metagenomic sequencing data available from 745 paired fecal samples from two independent population cohorts, Lifelines-DEEP (LLD, n = 292) and the 500 Functional Genomics project (500FG, n = 453), we confirmed significant differences in DNA yield and the recovered microbial communities between protocols, with the APK method resulting in a higher DNA concentration and microbial diversity.

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  • Scientists are studying how the tiny living things in our gut (gut microbiome) can affect cancer treatment, specifically with a method called immune checkpoint blockade (ICB).
  • They looked at 175 patients with a type of skin cancer called melanoma to see how changes in the gut microbiome relate to how well the treatment works over time.
  • They found that certain types of gut bacteria can help predict if patients will do better or worse with the treatment, and understanding these changes can help doctors improve therapies in the future.
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Background: A pathogenic mutation in the manganese transporter ZIP8 (A391T; rs13107325) increases the risk of Crohn's disease. ZIP8 regulates manganese homeostasis and given the shared need for metals between the host and resident microbes, there has been significant interest in alterations of the microbiome in carriers of ZIP8 A391T. Prior studies have not examined the ileal microbiome despite associations between ileal disease and ZIP8 A391T.

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Although the impact of host genetics on gut microbial diversity and the abundance of specific taxa is well established, little is known about how host genetics regulates the genetic diversity of gut microorganisms. Here we conducted a meta-analysis of associations between human genetic variation and gut microbial structural variation in 9,015 individuals from four Dutch cohorts. Strikingly, the presence rate of a structural variation segment in Faecalibacterium prausnitzii that harbours an N-acetylgalactosamine (GalNAc) utilization gene cluster is higher in individuals who secrete the type A oligosaccharide antigen terminating in GalNAc, a feature that is jointly determined by human ABO and FUT2 genotypes, and we could replicate this association in a Tanzanian cohort.

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Introduction: Intestinal epithelial cells produce interleukin-18 (IL-18), a key factor in promoting epithelial barrier integrity. Here, we analyzed the potential role of gut bacteria and the hypoxia-inducible factor 1α (HIF1α) pathway in regulating mucosal expression in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).

Methods: Mucosal samples from patients with IBD ( = 760) were analyzed for bacterial composition, levels and HIF1α pathway activation.

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  • Research shows that gut microbiota composition can impact cancer treatment responses, specifically in patients receiving immunotherapy for melanoma.
  • * Various mechanisms by which intestinal bacteria influence tumors are being explored to improve the effectiveness of immune checkpoint inhibitors.
  • * The use of advanced "omics" technologies is helping to understand host-microbe interactions, which may lead to personalized treatments and strategies to modify the microbiota for better cancer outcomes.
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Aims: Despite treatment advancements, cardiovascular disease remains a leading cause of death worldwide. Identifying new targets is crucial for enhancing preventive and therapeutic strategies. The gut microbiome has been associated with coronary artery disease (CAD), however our understanding of specific changes during CAD development remains limited.

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Kidney transplant recipients (KTR) have impaired health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and suffer from intestinal dysbiosis. Increasing evidence shows that gut health and HRQoL are tightly related in the general population. Here, we investigate the association between the gut microbiome and HRQoL in KTR, using metagenomic sequencing data from fecal samples collected from 507 KTR.

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  • Microscopic colitis (MC) includes two subtypes: collagenous colitis (CC) and lymphocytic colitis (LC), and their relationship as either distinct entities or a continuum needs further investigation.
  • A genome-wide association study (GWAS) involving nearly 15,000 individuals found a strong link between HLA alleles and collagenous colitis, highlighting specific alleles and their variants as significant factors.
  • The findings suggest that CC and LC have different biological mechanisms, particularly with HLA's relevant role in CC, which raises questions about current definitions and classifications of microscopic colitis.
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The rising use of pesticides in modern agriculture has led to a shift in disease burden in which exposure to these chemicals plays an increasingly important role. The human gut microbiome, which is partially responsible for the biotransformation of xenobiotics, is also known to promote biotransformation of environmental pollutants. Understanding the effects of occupational pesticide exposure on the gut microbiome can thus provide valuable insights into the mechanisms underlying the impact of pesticide exposure on health.

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  • Research investigated the connection between gut microbiome and cytokine production in people living with HIV (PLHIV) who are on antiretroviral therapy (ART), exploring the chronic immune dysregulation they experience.
  • The study involved analyzing metagenomic data from 143 PLHIV and comparing them to 190 matched controls, revealing that PLHIV exhibited microbial dysbiosis linked to their HIV viral reservoir, cytokine production capacity, and behaviors.
  • Results indicated that specific gut microbes differ between PLHIV and healthy individuals, suggesting that targeting the gut microbiome could improve immune responses for those living with HIV.
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Oxidative stress (OS) is an important pathophysiological mechanism in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). However, clinical trials investigating compounds directly targeting OS in IBD yielded mixed results. The NRF2 (nuclear factor erythroid 2-related factor 2)/Keap1 (Kelch-like ECH-associated protein 1) pathway orchestrates cellular responses to OS, and dysregulation of this pathway has been implicated in IBD.

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