05/11/2024

By Karen Angelo

For optimal health, omega-3 fatty acids stand out as an important nutrient for humans to consume. These vital fats fight inflammation, improve brain health, and protect the heart. For people in high-stress jobs, such as those in the U.S. armed forces, omega-3 fatty acids could help maintain peak performance during the most stressful times.

Found primarily in fish, omega-3 fatty acids are not the easiest nutrient to consume in the diet of military personnel. The stability of fatty acids often deteriorates due to high heat conditions. Additionally, some people don’t like to eat fish.

Assoc. Zuckerberg College of Health Sciences Professor Kelsey Mangano of Biomedical and Nutritional Sciences has received a $900,000 grant from the Exploring Emerging Research Opportunities to Empower Soldiers (HEROES), a joint research and development initiative of UMass Lowell and the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command. Soldier Center (DEVCOM), to study the natural production of omega-3.

“Identifying natural bacteria that have the potential to produce omega-3 fatty acids is the first step toward developing probiotics that, once taken, will stay in the body, live a long time, and naturally stimulate the production of these healthy fats,” Mangano explains. “The results of this study could pave the way for future testing of a probiotic in human food. »

The interdisciplinary research team, a partnership between industry, academia and government, includes experts in the fields of microbiology, nutrition, immunology and data science to study the most common microbes. more likely to produce omega-3 fatty acids.

Gregory Weber, a research biologist and member of DEVCOM’s Functional Foods and Nutrition Response Team, will collaborate with the team to provide scientific information tailored to military applications.

Industry partner Aviwell, a life sciences startup housed at the Massachusetts Medical Device Development Center (M2D2) UML campus, will apply artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques to run hundreds of thousands of bacteria combinations to to find the most likely bacterial ecologies that produce omega-3s.

“Aviwell uses data science to uncover the truth that already exists in nature,” says CEO Mouli Ramani. “We are excited to collaborate with UMass Lowell and DEVCOM researchers on this project. We will use our proprietary discovery platform to analyze the complete genetic information of bacteria and the molecules they release. This will allow us to identify specific bacterial ecologies that produce omega-3.

A vast army of approximately 100 trillion microbes, healthy and unhealthy, lives in the gut. Previous studies have shown that certain bacteria native to the human gut impact digestion, immune function and overall health. A combination of bacteria may be able to produce omega-3 fatty acids which can then be absorbed into the bloodstream.

This latest study will attempt to identify the most efficient bacteria that produce omega-3.

“We know that some species of fish contain high amounts of omega-3 fatty acids, in part because of the microbes living in the fish,” says Mangano. “We will collect stool samples from people who eat a lot of fish to identify the bacteria that grow in the human gut in response to these fish-rich diets.”

An expert in human gut health, Assoc. Professor Soumita Das of Biomedical and Nutritional Sciences and Associate Director of the Center for Pathogen Research and Training will isolate bacterial DNA from stool samples of people eating diets rich in fish and having high levels of omega- 3 present in their blood.

“By harnessing the body’s microbial ecosystem, we could find a natural and sustainable way to increase omega-3 levels to improve the physical and mental health of military personnel,” says Das, who studies how microbes and the human body interact during infections. the digestive system to understand the mechanisms of these infections, how the body fights them and find ways to prevent or treat them.

Jack Lepine, director and principal scientist of the Next Generation Sequencing and Genomics Laboratory at UMass Lowell, will sequence bacteria collected from human stool, revealing the genetic code to analyze its structure and function.

The research team also includes Assoc. Dean of Research and Graduate Studies Prof. Dhimiter Bello of Zuckerberg College of Health Sciences and Asst. Chemistry professor Pengyuan Liu, who will test the fatty acid profiles of the zebrafish to see if higher levels of omega-3 were produced. This combined effort will best identify potential bacteria that are successful in producing omega-3.

“Solving complex problems such as how bacteria that reside in the gut microbiome produce omega-3 requires the power of interdisciplinarity to unlock new knowledge,” says Bello. “By partnering with Aviwell, an industry leader and innovator in life sciences and machine learning, we are able to accelerate the pace of discovery and translation into real-world applications . »

In collaboration with the Army’s DEVCOM Soldier Center, Combat Nutrition Division, Mangano will lead an advisory committee to identify the most effective and acceptable probiotic delivery system to Soldiers and plan future related research.