Unravelling the mechanisms of action of a probiotic mixture on mini-guts. Probiotics are products that contain "friendly gut bacteria" and that are allegedly conferring a health benefit on the gut. Recently, a specific cocktail of probiotic bacteria has been shown some promising results when used to treat dogs with severe forms of chronic inflammatory gut conditions like Inflammatory Bowel Disease. However, as 9 different bacterial strains were included in the product used, it is so far unclear if all of them are needed, how they interact and what the best ingredients for this mixture are. We aim to elucidate these mechanisms further by using so called "mini-guts" or "organoids", which are small structures resembling the intestine that can be grown in a petri dish from biopsies. This project will take many years before we can get those answers, but we think it is an exciting new path for potential new treatments. In the meantime, we can offer the probiotic "cocktail" as it is commercially available to our patients that suffer from severe IBD if other treatment modalities are not working. Publication date 19 Apr, 2018
