In a study published online in the journal Nature Medicine, an international team of researchers identified a link between members of the bacterial genus Veillonella and athletic performance. The scientists observed an increase in abundance of Veillonella in marathon runners and isolated a strain of Veillonella atypica from their samples. They also found that Veillonella metabolize lactic acid produced by exercise and convert it into propionate; the human then body utilizes that propionate to improve exercise capacity.
Scheiman et al found Veillonella bacteria in the microbiome of elite athletes. Image credit: Composita.
“Having increased exercise capacity is a strong predictor of overall health and protection against cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and overall longevity,” said Dr. Aleksandar Kostic, a researcher at Joslin Diabetes Center and Harvard Medical School.
“What we envision is a probiotic supplement that people can take that will increase their ability to do meaningful exercise and therefore protect them against chronic diseases including diabetes.”
To identify gut bacteria associated with athletic performance, Dr. Kostic and colleagues recruited athletes who ran in the 2015 Boston Marathon, along with a group of sedentary individuals.
The researchers collected samples during a time span of one week before the marathon to one week after the marathon.
They then analyzed the samples to determine the species of gut bacteria in both cohorts.
“One of the things that immediately caught our attention was this single organism, Veillonella, that was clearly enriched in abundance immediately after the marathon in the runners,” Dr. Kostic said.
“Veillonella is also at higher abundance in the marathon runners than it is in sedentary individuals.”
They confirmed the link to improved exercise capacity in mouse models, where they saw a marked increase in running ability after supplementation with Veillonella. Next, they wanted to figure out how it worked.
“As we dug into the details of Veillonella, what we found was that it is relatively unique in the human microbiome in that it uses lactate or lactic acid as its sole carbon source,” Dr. Kostic said.
Lactic acid is produced by the muscles during strenuous exercise. The Veillonella bacteria are able to use this exercise by-product as their main food source.
“Our immediate hypothesis was that it worked as a metabolic sink to remove lactate from the system, the idea being that lactate build-up in the muscles creates fatigue,” Dr. Kostic explained.
“But talking to experts in the exercise physiology field, apparently this idea that lactate build-up causes fatigue is not accepted to be true. So, it caused us to rethink the mechanism of how this is happening.”
Dr. Kostic and co-authors returned to the lab to figure out what could be causing the increase in exercise capacity.
They ran a metagenomic analysis, meaning they tracked the genetics of all the organisms in the microbiome community, to determine what events were triggered by Veillonella’s metabolism of lactic acid.
They noted that the enzymes associated with conversion of lactic acid into the short chain fatty acid propionate were at much higher abundance after exercise.
“Then the question was maybe it’s not removal of lactic acid, but the generation of propionate,” Dr. Kostic said.
“We did some experiments to introduce propionate into mice and test whether that was sufficient for this increased running ability phenotype. And it was.”
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Jonathan Scheiman et al. Meta-omics analysis of elite athletes identifies a performance-enhancing microbe that functions via lactate metabolism. Nature Medicine, published online June 24, 2019; doi: 10.1038/s41591-019-0485-4
