Abstract
Humans are microbial, ecosystems and symbioses. The relationship that humans have with their microbiomes is an essential element to maintaining health and wellbeing. Recent changes in lifestyles may have fostered an alteration of this symbiosis, which is frequently associated with chronic disorders. Here, we will review the state of the art on the central role of human-microbes symbiosis in health and disease, highlighting the innovations expected from the emerging knowledge on host-microbes symbiosis, for diagnosis, preventive nutrition, and a medicine of the ‘microbial human’. Since microbiome science also impacts several sustainable development goals of the Planetary Boundaries Initiative, we will also explore how microbiome science could help to provide sustainability tools and strategies aligned with the life support systems sought by the Micro-Ecological Life Support Systems Alternative (MELiSSA) Project lead by the European Space Agency (ESA).
1 Introduction
The microbiota is the complex and dynamic community of microbes with which humans interact on a constant basis. Human-associated microbes are present on the skin and at every mucosal interface of the human body, but the highest densities are found in the large intestine. It is estimated that in the human body there are overall 50 trillion bacteria as well as a multitude of archaea, phages, fungi, and yeasts.
These microbes exert several functions that pertain to four essential domains of regulation, acting not only as endocrine and metabolic, immuno-inflammatory and neuro-vegetative regulators, but also as antimicrobial protectors.
These functions are expressed at 3 key interfaces: 1) food-microbes, 2) microbes-microbes, and 3) microbes-human cells. It is hypothesized that they can provide protective benefits to the human host by preventing infections as well as the onset and progression of a large array of chronic conditions that have increased in incidence. These chronic conditions are seen today by the World Health Organization (WHO) as an epidemic, considering they represent a major public health burden: obesity, inflammatory diseases, liver conditions, some cancers, neuro-degenerative and neuro-psychiatric disorders ().
1.1 Features of a health-associated microbiota
Although the establishment of a concise definition of the ‘normal’ microbiota has remained challenging, the identification of structural and functional alterations of the gut microbiota has been evaluated in numerous clinical conditions, aiming to document a plausible link. Molecular characterization of the human intestinal microbiota has gone through a technical revolution with the application of high throughput sequencing that has given insights into inter-individual similarities and differences in microbiota in health and disease. Analyzing hundreds of individual microbiota profiles revealed that healthy individuals share a core microbiota. It gathers a rather small number of bacterial species that are present in every healthy individual (; ). Interestingly, this core microbiome is less than 20 species out of the average 300 species of each dominant intestinal microbiome. In addition, the microbiota appears remarkably stable over time for each person, except in early life or at old age, as well as upon intake of therapeutic treatments or drastic changes in life habits or nutrition (; Zhernakova et al., 2016).
This indicates that it would be possible to point at bacterial species that are consistently associated with dietary recommendations known to be beneficial - or conversely detrimental - for human health.
Table 1 summarizes the two sets of bacterial taxa proposed based on studies of volunteers of the UK-Twin cohort. Due to functional redundancy, diverse microbial species will often contribute to similar functions irrespective of their taxonomic assignment, hence a normal/health-associated microbiota may be better specified on a functional standpoint rather than in terms of composition. Indeed, a series of metabolites derived from microbiome metabolism have gained interest as they are associated with health or risk/disease as shown on Table 2 ().
TABLE 1
| Bacterial taxa associated to healthy diet | Bacterial taxa associated to unhealthy diet |
|---|---|
| Faecalibacterium prausnitzii [99.5] | Ruthenibacterium lactatiformans [99.1] |
| Eubacterium eligens [92.5] | Flavonifractor plautii [92.9] |
| Oscillibacter sp 57.20 [89.3] | Clostridium leptum [91.7] |
| Romboutsia ilealis [82.9] | Escherichia coli [67.1] |
| Haemophilus parainfluenzae [54.6] | Collinsella intestinalis [66.5] |
| Firmicutes bacterium CAG 95 [51.3] | Clostridium sp CAG 58 [64.3] |
| Oscillate sp PC13 [50.0] | Eggerthella lenta [61.7] |
| Veillonella dispar [46.8] | Anaerotruncus colihominis [50.5] |
| Roseburia sp CAG 182 [41.3] | Clostridium boltae [50.1] |
| Veillonella atypica [40.5] | Clostridium spiriforme [43.7] |
| Clostridium sp CAG 167 [40.1] | Ruminococcus gnavus [43.3] |
| Veillonella infantium [38.5] | Clostridium innocuum [41.2] |
| Bifidobacterium animalis [38.2] | Blautia hydrogenotrophica [28.6] |
| Prevotella copri [36.0] | Clostridium symbiosum [27.6] |
| Firmicutes bacterium CAG 170 [34.3] | Clostridium boltae CAG 59 [26.7] |
Bacterial taxa associated to a healthy or unhealthy diet (). Taxa are ranked from the most to the least prevalent [%]. When the genome does not correspond to a cultured strain, a Co-Abundant Genes-cluster (CAG) is indicated.
[%] when referring to prevalence means [% microbiomes with taxon in dominance].
TABLE 2
| Features associated to health | Features associated to risk/disease |
|---|---|
| Short chain fatty acids, specifically butyrate | Short chain fatty acids |
| B-complex vitamins, vitamin K and folate | Ammonia |
| Fecal secondary bile acids, deoxycholic acid and lithocholic acid | Lipopolysaccharide (endotoxin) |
| Gamma Amino Butyric Acid (precursor of serotonin) | Fecal primary and secondary bile acids |
| Methane | Trimethylamine (precursor of Trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO)) |
| Indole-propionic acid (tryptophan metabolite) | Hydrogen sulfide |
| Polysaccharide A (PSA) | Indoxyl-sulfate |
| N-acyl amides (human signal molecules mimics) | p-cresyl-sulfate |
| Indoles | Indoles |
| Branched-chain amino-acids, arginine, glutamine, histidine | Phenols |
| Phenolic compounds and conjugated linoleic acids (anti-inflammatory metabolites) | Phenolic acids |
Microbiome-derived features and metabolites that may be associated with health or risk/disease ().
In addition, early shotgun metagenomics-based microbiome studies highlighted two unexpected elements of stratification of the microbiota with health relevance.
Firstly, microbiome richness was recognized as a stratifier. Microbiomes show a broad heterogeneity in health and disease. In some studies, a separate fraction of the population shows a low richness microbiome, and this may even be a predictive feature in several contexts. For example, a low richness microbiome will predict.
- Non-response to calory restriction in obesity ()
- Severity/progression in acute liver conditions (; )
- Non-response to cancer immunotherapies and a lesser progression-free survival in melanoma () and lung cancer ()
- Reduced survival rate following hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) in blood cancer therapy ()
- A lesser global survival of patients receiving HSCT during blood-cancer therapy ()
- A higher mortality from acute graft versus host disease during blood-cancer therapy (; )
Secondly, four ecological configurations which stratify the human population have been described and are also known as enterotypes (; ). One combines the genus Bacteroides as dominant taxon and a low richness. This enterotype (B2) is associated with the highest prevalence of altered metabolic and inflammatory markers conferring a higher suspicion of cardiometabolic risk for this segment of the population (Vieira-Silva et al., 2020).
1.2 Altered host-microbes symbiosis
Host-microbes symbiosis guarantees maintenance of health and wellbeing, yet for more than half a century our inner microbial inhabitants and symbiosis have received little consideration. Today, the epidemiological evidence is that an uncontrolled increase in the incidence of so-called non-transmissible chronic diseases () is characterized by an alteration in the homeostasis of the host-microbes symbiosis. Host-microbe symbiosis is affected by every life event, from birth to nutrition, lifestyles, exposure to ubiquitous chemicals in the environment, food, and medical therapies. Individual and societal changes of these parameters may have contributed to the alteration of the microbiota that is documented in many chronic diseases (). But beyond the mere alteration of the microbiota, chronic diseases are typically characterized by the concomitant alteration of host parameters such as intestinal permeability, inflammatory tone, and oxidative stress. In addition, not only physiological, but also psychological stress will impact host parameters at the intestinal level, specifically permeability and inflammation via cortisol (; ; Varanoske et al., 2022). For the past 30 years, microbiota alteration observed in chronic diseases has been documented and recognized as ‘dysbiosis’. A major paradigm shift is now leading to dysbiosis being recognized as a disruption of host-microbes symbiosis. The microbiome is in constant functional interaction with several features of the human host, such that any alteration of the microbiome will affect the host and conversely. As described earlier, the main host features that will determine the overall configuration of the symbiosis landscape are gut permeability, inflammation, and oxidative stress (; ). Figure 1 illustrates the overall concept of these interacting features of symbiosis. Beyond simple bidirectional host-microbes interactions, recent research shows that alteration of these features can lead to positive feedbacks establishing a vicious circle whereby the whole system can enter alternative stable states sustained by circular causalities (; ; ; ). This may lead to a loss of the healthy microbiome functions explained above (direct anti-microbial protection as well as endocrino-metabolic, immuno-inflammatory and neuro-vegetative regulation). For example, the ecological perturbation of the microbiome due to a course of antibiotic will induce a loss of the barrier function, which may cause nosocomial infection with Clostridioides difficile, or a proliferation of the previously subdominant pathogen (; ).
FIGURE 1
Early evidence of causality was recently provided by the demonstration that symbiosis, reconstructed by microbiota transfer from patients to initially germ-free or microbiome depleted animals, can mimic the diseased phenotype or at least be accompanied by a metabolic, inflammatory, or infectious risk. Examples that support this evidence were documented in obesity (
1.3 Factors impacting the microbiome
Rather than a sole alteration of the microbiome, the common thread in numerous chronic conditions is an altered host-microbes symbiosis which is known to be under the influence of numerous intrinsic and environmental factors.
Among the intrinsic host factors, genetics, ethnic origin, age (but mainly in early life and old age) and sex will potentially play pivotal roles (Zhernakova et al., 2016). In addition, the overall health state is also associated with alterations of the microbiome where gut transit state is a key player. This intrinsic factor has a marked influence on the microbiome that ‘proxis’, such as ‘time since previous stool passage’ or the score on the Bristol stool scale at the moment of fecal sample collection, are highly associated with microbiome variations. Among the key features to consider, microbiome gene richness and its enterotype are also highly relevant.
Aside from intrinsic factors, modulators of the microbiome arise from elements of environmental exposure where both medical treatments and diet will rank highest (
2 Innovative strategies
Microbiome science has reached a point of maturity, impacting preventive nutrition and medicine via monitoring and diagnostic innovations as well as translational therapeutic developments (Wilkinson et al., 2021).
2.1 Diagnostics and predictive models
Despite the recognition of the importance of host-microbes symbiosis in a large array of immune-mediated clinical conditions microbiome configuration and host related symptoms have never been combined in the context of innovative diagnostic models. The two most obvious parameters that could be combined immediately are immune status and microbiome profile. The former is commonly assessed by Medical Biology Laboratories (blood cell counts, CRP, calprotectin) and the latter is today amenable to standardized assessment. As recently tested in the context of pediatric ulcerative colitis, mapping the symbiosis status based on a combination of a microbiome parameter and a measure of inflammatory tone, not only allows to position each patient distant from healthy controls, but it also allows to anticipate the potential for each patient to enter remission during a 1-year clinical management under standard care with immuno-suppressants and/or corticoids (van de Guchte et al., 2021). Nevertheless, the relevance of such novel approaches will require qualification and verification of the biomarker’s associations, and in turn the evaluation of their potential to assist the decision process of healthcare professionals, with ensuing benefits for the patient. Aside from Standard Operating Procedures and reference materials that are available for Medical Biology Laboratories to implement these assessments, the complete pipeline will have to be in place for medical doctors to prescribe, obtain and use these new predictors for their clinical value to be evaluated in diverse clinical indications.
Statistical approaches that can generate predictive models linking microbiome features with relevant metadata are captured under the term Machine Learning (ML). Among ML approaches, supervised ML refers to algorithms that take a set of features and the target values to predict, while unsupervised ML algorithms take as input a set of features and identify any structure within them. ML methods applied to microbiome data, which often suffers from high-dimensionality, sparsity, and compositionality issues, require specific caution in their application and associated data management. ML models are already trained towards the identification of microbiome signatures with diagnostic or predictive value in various disease conditions (
2.2 Prevention and therapy
Similarly, for preventive or therapeutic reasons, it seems appropriate to develop and validate innovative strategies that will ensure a more efficient preservation and/or restoration of symbiosis by targeting at the same time host and microbiome parameters. This is a paradigm shift from former strategies whereby single bioactives (pre-, pro- or post biotics) were used with the aim to provide and complement a given lost function. Combining bioactives targeting several of the triggers mentioned above could improve the potential to act on feed-back loops and break vicious circles that would otherwise remain unaffected or strongly resilient when tackling only one of many triggers. Although not yet implemented in the clinic, a recent publication showed in a mouse model that three food-grade bioactives targeting microbiota, gut permeability, inflammation, and oxidative stress could correct impaired behavior (anxiety and depression) to the same extent as an antidepressant (
3 Application for space-travel conditions
As stated in previous sections, several intrinsic and extrinsic aspects directly affect the human gut microbiome and spaceflight is certainly a factor playing a pivotal role. Astronauts endure several physiological and psychological changes while in space due to the exposure to “the space exposome” which gathers galactic cosmic radiation, altered gravity, confinement, nutrient supply, sleep deprivation and alteration of the circadian rhythms, (
To date, only a few studies have been devoted to monitoring the evolution of the gut microbiome of human space travelers and these studies have a limited sample size and diversity (
However, this situation will change with the integration of regenerative LSS in human exploration missions foreseen by space agencies where sustained human presence on Martian floor is targeted. Whereas during voyage, ECLSS will remain based only (or mostly) on physico-chemical recycling processes due to the intrinsic mass of the cycle components as well as the inherent mass, volume and energy requirements of the system, upon arrival on martial soil, the regenerative ECLSS could become the unlocking key to meeting human needs, as local resources and materials could be harnessed and transformed by the system itself into suitable inputs (Verseux et al., 2016). Regenerative LSS development has been supported by International Space Agencies, where the European Space Agency (ESA) was a pioneer by the implementation of the MELiSSA (Micro-Ecological Life-Support Systems Alternative) project in 1989 (
Based on ongoing efforts, a roadmap for the development of predictive modelling can be suggested. This roadmap could become the baseline for future activities within the frame of the MELiSSA Project lead by ESA. Figure 2 highlights the specific objectives suggested above and for which predictive modeling would be most appropriate.
FIGURE 2

Outline of specific objectives that would benefit from the development of predictive modeling tools towards circularization of processes in a closed system configuration. Both optimization of waste management and preservation of human health are indicated as outcomes. Currently available procedures for the conditioning of human intestinal contents in a way that will preserve the integrity of the complex microbiome as a full ecosystem would allow both earth-bound and space-bound applications.
Statements
Author contributions
All authors listed have made a substantial, direct, and intellectual contribution to the work and approved it for publication.
Funding
This publication work was supported in part by the European Commission in the context of ERC-2017-AdG No. 788191, Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 964590, and in the context of MetaGenoPolis grant ANR-11-DPBS-0001.
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
Publisher’s note
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Summary
Keywords
MELiSSA (Micro-Ecological Life Support System Alternative), microbiome, symbiosis, life support system, health and disease
Citation
Doré J and Ortega Ugalde S (2023) Human-microbes symbiosis in health and disease, on earth and beyond planetary boundaries. Front. Astron. Space Sci. 10:1180522. doi: 10.3389/fspas.2023.1180522
Received
06 March 2023
Accepted
11 September 2023
Published
22 September 2023
Volume
10 - 2023
Edited by
Cyprien Verseux, University of Bremen, Germany
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© 2023 Doré and Ortega Ugalde.
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*Correspondence: Joel Doré, joel.dore@inrae.fr
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