HOLOFLUX

 Holobionts and microbial flux within agrifood systems

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microbiote intestinal, preuve chez les porcs © INRAE
article

23 July 2024

By: Com

Research in pigs shows gut microbiota is partially heritable

Comprising billions of microorganisms, the gut microbiota progressively matures after birth in humans and other animals. While environmental factors, and especially diet, are known to have a major influence on microbiota development and composition, the role of genetics remains a topic of debate. In a groundbreaking study recently published in Microbiome, INRAE researchers used pigs to experimentally demonstrate that gut microbiota composition is partly heritable.
© INRAE
The HoloGrain initiative mobilises several INRAE teams whose work targets a particular stage in the production chain (pre- or post-harvest) or a specific issue. This network will make it possible to integrate the various stages and to follow a wheat grain holobiont throughout the agri-food chain.
Azzedine Rouichi - Unsplash
The TANDEM project aims to better understand how micro-organisms in the dairy food chain respond to the changes associated with agroecological transition.
Chicks INRAE
The EggToMeat project aims at identifying the impact of farming parameters on the flux of microbiota along the chicken production chain, from eggs to carcasses. For that purpose, two housing conditions (indoors vs outdoor range) will be compared on a single batch of embryonated eggs.

We are all holobionts!

Schéma holobionte © INRAE

Superior organisms (plants, animals and humans) live in close association with cohorts of micro-organisms: bacteria, fungi, viruses, etc. These microbiotas and their hosts form an entity called a holobiont (from the Greek words holos, or “all”, and bios, “life”). The Holoflux metaprogramme focuses on the constitution, dynamics and management of holobionts by studying host-micro-organism interactions and the microbial fluxes between them within different environments.

 

 

Food systeme cycle © INRAE

The environments studied are agrifood systems in the broadest sense, from the production of foods (crops, harvest, processing, storage) to their distribution, consumption and the management of waste and by-products. Holoflux takes particular account of the challenges of a healthy and sustainable diet, and the preservation of plant, animal and human health.

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  • The HOLOFLUX metaprogramme and the other metaprogrammes mentioned on this website are interdisciplinary scientific programming tools of the French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment (INRAE).
  • For more information on all metaprograms, see the INRAE metaprogrammes page.