Metabolic functions of intestinal flora

The sixth lecture was entitled: "Metabolic functions of the intestinal flora: can the intestinal microbiota make us obese and diabetic?" and took up a recent evolution in our vision of the microbiota as part of ourselves, representing the metabolic equivalent of the liver. Hence the notion of superorganism or hologenome, which is taking shape and opening up the possibility of considering the responsibility of the microbial flora not only in pathological inflammatory situations, but also in situations of metabolic dysfunction, as these bacteria may, for example, ensure excess production of energy nutrients, contributing to the development of obesity, or translocate through the intestinal barrier and cause inflammation of adipocytes, leading to insulin resistance and diabetes. These still controversial topics are currently the focus of highly sophisticated fundamental research, including metagenomic analysis, i.e. the sequence of the pool of genes making up, for example, the microbiota of selected individuals. The complementary seminar to this lecture was given by Rémy Burcelin (INSERM, Toulouse), one of the first to put forward the possibility of a role for components of the intestinal microbiota in the onset of type II diabetes.