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Virtual RoomSeveral seminars are held weekly at the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência, an initiative that aims to bring together all researchers around the topics under discussion.
The sessions, with internal researchers or guests, contribute to stimulate the open and extremely collaborative culture of the IGC.
You can read the abstract of this seminar to learn more about it.
Rhythmic spontaneous contractions of body walls, such as those of the gastrointestinal tract, are a ubiquitous phenomenon in the animal kingdom. Studies in mice and humans have implied that intestinal dysmotility is associated with a disturbed microbiota, but the causal relationship has been unclear. Here, by applying experimental and theoretical approaches in the model Hydra, we provide functional evidence that reducing the frequency of spontaneous body wall contractions alters the fluid microenvironment near the tissue surface and thereby modifies the composition of the colonizing microbiota. Our findings suggest that spontaneous contractions of body walls enhance the transport of chemical compounds from and to the tissue surface where the bacteria reside, thus shaping and stabilizing the host-microbe associations.
SPEAKER
Thomas Bosch
Kiel University – Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel