Mikrobiomet är av stor betydelse för människors och växters hälsa. Det mänskliga tarmmikrobiomet har väldokumenterade funktioner som påverkar människors hälsa. Forskning om växtmikrobiom får allt större fart, men de holistiska sambanden mellan frö, jord och växtmikrobiom och människors hälsa är fortfarande oklara. I denna pilotstudie undersöker man kopplingar mellan jordens och mänskliga mikrobiomer där man tittar på potentiella skillnader i mikrobiomet hos tomater som odlas ekologiskt på levande jord eller icke-ekologiskt på oorganiskt substrat, samt efter rå konsumtion efterföljande effekter i tarmkanalen (i en mänsklig tarmmodell). Man hoppas kunna besvara ifall mikrobiomen som konsumeras som råa grönsaker påverkar människans tarmmikrobiota?

Fem frågor till projektet:

Why is the project interesting?
For many years, researchers have tried to prove organic food is healthier than non-organic. However, without much hard evidence. Looking into the microbiome of organic and non-orgnaic food might open up a new avenue for this. Especially when we could establish differences not only on the fresh tomatoes from organic and non-organic growers, but also after one eats them and they journey through human intestines, where microbiome itself or effects of microbiome might affect human health.

Where did you get the idea for the project from?
After getting in contact with a research group around professor Venema of (then) Maastricht University doing research with an artificial gastro-intestinal duct system called the TIM model, our mind’s wheels started turning at Louis Bolk Institute and the idea for this pilot came bubbling up. Are there differences, are they still there after eating so they can have an effect through your gut’s microbiome?

What was the most difficult in the project?
We hadn’t taken into account he extreme strict quarantine measures in Dutch conventional tomato production facilities. We had trouble finding growers willing to participate in our research, leaving us with fewer samples than we hoped for at the start of this pilot.

What are your findings from the study?
Tomato is, apart from the quarantine issues, in hindsight a lousy crop to do your research on, as it carries relatively little microbiome. That’s why we decided to skip the TIM analyses entirely, as it would have been a waste of budget to spend on minimal microbiome loads and differences to start with. We did however find significant differences on the fresh tomatoes between growers, but with the low number of growers we could not pin that on them being organic or not.

How do you plan to proceed?
We sure haven’t given up on our venue of research, but plan to take it up in other crops eaten raw. Crops of which we know we’ll have plenty of growers and samples with decent microbiome loads on and in the fresh produce. We’re still eager to establish whether organic food is healthier than non-organic or not, and if so, if differences in microbiome could possibly explain the beneficial effect in this.

Projektdetaljer och rapporter