In this presentation Dr. David Perlmutter expands the discussion of the human microbiome—home to roughly 100 trillion microorganisms and vast genetic material—to a planetary scale he calls the "macrobiome." He highlights a recent Science study on the global ocean microbiome, showing that despite the ocean’s aerobic, variable-temperature environment versus the gut’s anaerobic, stable conditions, more than 73% of microbial abundance and functional genes are shared with the human gut, including defense mechanisms, carbohydrate transport, and even photosynthesis genes. He also references a 2013 PNAS study that identified a dynamic microbiome in the upper troposphere, suggesting microbes influence the hydrological cycle and climate. Throughout, Perlmutter emphasizes that microorganisms pervade all Earth environments and play fundamental roles in both planetary health and human disease risk, urging a broader perspective on microbial ecology.
Chapters
Hello, I'm Dr. David Perlmutter. You know, over the past couple of years, I've been talking about how vast is the human microbiome, and indeed, it really is compelling when you consider 100 trillion organisms and all of their genetic material. It's really compelling in terms of just the, the data that that represents, but it's actually a much bigger picture that I think we have to embrace. Because it isn't just the human body that we're talking about. It is, in fact, the entire planet. Let's look at some research that was recently published in Science. And what you see here is an interesting report that was just published in May of this year in Science magazine called Structure and Function of the Global Ocean Microbiome. Now, this is a really interesting kind of study because It looks at the microbiome, the bacteria and other organisms that live in the ocean. And in this next slide, you'll see the various areas that were sampled to look at the various bacteria and other organisms. And, you know, we talk about the human microbiome and how exciting it is, but really, every corner of the world has its own microbiome, creating what we call a macrobiome, if you will. And interestingly enough, if you look at this next slide, how intriguing it is that there are these temperature and oxygenation differences between what goes on in the human gut and what we see in the ocean. The gut is an anaerobic, meaning a low oxygen environment, that has a fairly constant temperature in comparison to the ocean, that's an aerobic environment, and the temperature is highly variable. But nonetheless, how exciting is this next quote from the study? We identify ocean microbial core functionality and reveal that greater than 73% of its abundance is shared with the human gut microbiome, despite the physicochemical differences between these 2 ecosystems. Meaning that even though the gut and the ocean are dramatically different environmentally, there is this huge resemblance or concordance of the bacteria that live there, to the extent that incredibly we find genes in the ocean, in the bacteria, that have both defense mechanisms as well as that are even involved in carbohydrate transport. Not exactly things that we would think are necessarily required for living in the ocean, And similarly, in the human microbiome, there are genes involved in photosynthesis, or the process of harvesting light energy and converting it into chemical energy. Why would that be in the human gut? Well, next we see the conclusion then of the study is that the fundamental way in which many microbes function has not changed much during their evolution. I would like to close this first section with a great quote from John Kennedy, who indicates that in fact we are tied to the ocean. When we go back to the sea, whether it's to sail or to watch it, we are going back from whence we came. Again, calling a great attention to the notion that there is such similarities between what goes on in the ocean and even within human blood. Well, more researchers, as published in the PNAS journal, February of 2013, looking at the microbiome of the upper troposphere. Now, the troposphere is defined as that area of the atmosphere that handles weather, that's involved with weather. And these researchers went up in a DC-8 and studied the organisms that live in the troposphere and made some remarkable discoveries. That the findings that they uncovered suggest that there is a microbiome and it is a dynamic and underappreciated aspect of the upper troposphere where potentially important impacts on the hydrological cycle occur involving the cloud and the climate. So we are just beginning to understand the human microbiome and its incredible role that it plays in terms of health and our risk for disease, but it's really very, very important for us to take a step back and recognize that microorganisms are pervasive in and on and around our planet, and indeed play fundamental roles in the health of our planet and in our planet's ability to resist changes that may be detrimental for us. Interesting stuff. I'm Dr. David Perlmutter.
