Our achievements to date
Leveraging the Power of Keystone Bacteria to Repair the Gut Microbiome Dysbiosis
Of the billions of bacteria that make up our body, certain families are considered keystone taxa of the microbiome, playing a unique and fundamental role in the host’s health. Keystone bacteria are the foundation of the whole ecosystem because they provide very specific metabolic functions that support other generalist micro-organisms. They set the scene for the fast growers, dominant bacteria that provide key metabolic and immune functions.
Hence, their removal or loss causes the ecosystem to collapse, generating a dramatic shift in microbiome structure and function, and resulting in a negative impact on our health.
> Discover the therapeutic potential of keystone bacteria
Today, Christensenella, which is missing in many chronic diseases patients, is a particularly promising keystone bacteria with tremendous therapeutic potential.
“The Christensenellaceae, a recently described family in the phylum Firmicutes, is emerging as an important player in human health.
The relative abundance of Christensenellaceae in the human gut is inversely related to host body mass index (BMI) in different populations and multiple studies, making its relationship with BMI the most robust and reproducible link between the microbial ecology of the human gut and metabolic disease reported to date.
The family is also related to a healthy status in a number of other different disease contexts, including obesity and inflammatory bowel disease. In addition, Christensenellaceae is highly heritable across multiple populations, although specific human genes underlying its heritability have so far been elusive.
Further research into the microbial ecology and metabolism of these bacteria should reveal mechanistic underpinnings of their host-health associations and enable their development as therapeutics.“
Waters et al., The human gut bacteria Christensenellaceae are widespread, heritable, and associated with health, 2019, BMC Biology
Developing
Single-Strain Living Biotherapies
At YSOPIA Bioscience, we are convinced that single bacterial strains will form the next generation of innovative gut microbiome-based medicine, as they address the fundamental causes of gut dysbiosis.
Our added value consists in selecting from among these families of keystone bacteria those with strong therapeutic potential to restore missing functions, having already demonstrated proof of concept, to bring them into the clinical development phase.
> Discover our pipeline
