Mechanism of action of the human microbiome.
The MAHMI Project (Mechanism of action of the human microbiome: from genetic sequences to immunomodulatory peptides), propose a step forward on the description and characterization of potential bioactive peptides encrypted in larger bacterial proteins. During 2014-2016, we will generate and characterize peptides encrypted in gastrointestinal microbiomes, which will be obtained in silico by the action of intestinal proteases from the protein microbiome complements. Genomic data will be downloaded from the main public repositories (NCBI, MG-RAST) or from the data of the main metagenomic consortia (Metahit, HMP). MAHMI core contains already a curated database of empiric data associating an amino acid sequence with antiproliferative or immunomodulatory bioactivity, which will be used for filtering the set of peptides generated. The biologic effect of some of the peptides showing the highest potential to be immunomodulatory or antiproliferative, will be characterised using cellular immune models (dendritic cells) or tumoral epithelial cell ines, coupled to a multi-omic analysis. These peptides could be useful in the treatment of Inflammatory Bowel Diseases or Colorectal Cancer.
In the close future, we hope that MAHMI Project will provide the user with a comparative tool for identifying the potential immunomodulatory or antiproliferative bioactivity of a submitted amino acidic sequence.