Mitochondrial perturbation in the intestine causes microbiota-dependent injury and gene signatures discriminative of inflammatory disease

Mitochondrial dysfunction is associated with inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD). To understand how microbial-metabolic circuits contribute to intestinal tissue injury, we disrupt mitochondrial function in the epithelium by deleting heat shock protein 60 (Hsp60{Delta}/{Delta}IEC). While metabolic perturbation causes self-resolving tissue injury, regeneration is disrupted in the absence of aryl hydrocarbon receptor (Hsp60{Delta}/{Delta}IEC;AhR-/-) or IL-10 (Hsp60{Delta}/{Delta}IEC;Il10-/-) leading to IBD-like pathology. Injury is absent in the distal colon of germ-free (GF) Hsp60{Delta}/{Delta}IEC mice, highlighting bacterial control of metabolic injury. Selective colonization of GF Hsp60{Delta}/{Delta}IEC mice with the synthetic community OMM12 confirms consistent expansion of metabolically-flexible Bacteroides spp. across all models and mono-colonization with B. caecimuris recapitulates injury. Transcriptional profiling of metabolically-impaired epithelium identifies gene signatures, including Ido1, Nos2, and Duox2, distinguishing active from inactive tissue inflammation in 343 resected samples from Crohns disease patients. In conclusion, mitochondrial perturbation of the epithelium causes microbiota-dependent tissue injury and discriminative inflammatory gene profiles relevant for IBD. O_FIG O_LINKSMALLFIG WIDTH=200 HEIGHT=171 SRC="FIGDIR/small/549844v6_ufig1.gif" ALT="Figure 1"> View larger version (44K): org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@240c5forg.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@a84382org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@e829e3org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@163625_HPS_FORMAT_FIGEXP M_FIG O_FLOATNOGraphical Abstract:C_FLOATNO Control of metabolic injury by microbial signals. C_FIG O_LIMitochondrial perturbation of the intestinal epithelium induces tissue injury C_LIO_LILoss of IL-10 and AhR-related host mechanisms accelerate injury and inflammation C_LIO_LIMitochondrial dysfunction induces dysbiosis and expansion of Bacteroides spp. C_LIO_LIMetabolic injury gene signature discriminates inflamed vs. non-inflamed IBD samples C_LI