Every year, 1.2 million people worldwide die from complications of liver cirrhosis (decompensation, acute or chronic liver failure). The main causes of the disease are alcoholism and viral infections (hepatitis), with certain factors such as diabetes and obesity worsening the prognosis. Among the recent advances in the understanding of the disease, the role of the intestinal microbiota (formerly known as gut flora) in the pathogenesis and progression of the disease is of great interest. There are quantitative and qualitative differences in its composition between people with cirrhosis and healthy people, differences that are notably linked to the migration of certain microorganisms from or to other microbiota in the body (salivary microbiota, circulatory microbiota...). The study of the microbiota, or rather the microbiome, should therefore make it possible, on the one hand, to predict and prevent the occurrence and/or aggravation of cirrhosis and, on the other hand, to propose adapted and personalized therapeutic solutions. 

This is the challenge taken up by the MICROB-PREDICT consortium, funded by the European Union for six years. This pan-European research project will integrate data from some 10,000 patients, previously collected in other large-scale studies, constituting a database of more than 100,000 data points, including stool, blood, saliva, mucous membrane and urine samples taken throughout the course of the disease. The consortium is particularly interested in identifying biomarkers of different stages of the disease and exploiting them to develop tests for use by physicians or patients, such as emergency diagnostic tests (Point Of Care (POC)) tests. 

Coordinator : EUROPEAN FOUNDATION FOR THE STUDY OF CHRONIC LIVER FAILURE (EF-CLIF)

Contact Joliot Institute: Christophe Junot (christophe.junot@cea.fr)

 webSITE

https://www.microb-predict.eu/

H2020 AGReeMENT id: 825694

©MICROB-PREDICT consortium