Fundamental bacteria in the microbiota for children with ASD: Akkermansia Muciniphila

There are many bacteria that are especially important, due to their scarcity, for the microbial composition in children within the autistic spectrum. Within this set of essential bacteria is the Akkermansia Muciniphila, mucolytic degrading bacteria whose low concentration would produce a scant layer of mucus on the epithelium, thus resulting in a function of weak intestinal barrier, and therefore, in a increased permeability of bacterial and fungal toxins.

Permeability, SIBO, and intestinal inflammation are some of the most frequent common pathologies found in children with ASD and in which Akkermansia Muciniphila plays a key role. Likewise, other metabolic diseases such as obesity and diabetes mellitus 2 seem to have their origin in the scarcity of this bacterium, although its modus operandis is currently unknown.

The Akkermansia Muciniphila represents between 1% and 5% of the human bacterial community, it is a very significant number, although we still do not know all the microbial diversity of our own microbiome, and it has not been until recently that we have managed to isolate and cultivate it. An example of what I am talking about is the company https://www.a-mansia.com/ which claimed already in 2021 to have it ready for approval and marketing.

The administration of fourth generation probiotics from the human microbiome itself seems to be the next stop station for science. In this line we found that the extraction of certain components of the bacteria, which until now have not been isolated due to their technical and biological difficulty, could be as beneficial as the administration of the bacteria itself.

In the case at hand, the Akkermansia Muciniphila, a study showed that the protein located in its membrane and extracted by pasteurization reduced the development of fat mass, insulin resistance and dyslipidemia in mice. A similar case occurs with Bacteroides Fragilis.

These discoveries are especially relevant, since the identification and isolation of these bacterial components could be, at least, as effective as the administration of probiotics based on strains that we all know, especially for pathologies such as inflammatory bowel syndrome so present, as I have commented, in cases of Autism.

Patrice D. Cani is a Belgian scientist who has been studying this bacterium for years, and claims that Akkermansia Muciniphila could be behind serious metabolic diseases when it is barely present. On the importance of its presence, and on how to increase its number in the microbiota, some studies have been carried out, such as that of Dr. Zhang X, which showed that the administration of Metformin and/or vancomycin improved the records of the presence of this bacterium in the intestine.

For all these reasons, and for everything that this bacterium implies in cardio-metabolic conditions, in cases of diabetes, chronic inflammation, and in cases of serious intestinal diseases that lead to fatal consequences for brain development (see gut- brain axis), we consider the Akkermansia Muciniphila, and based on the evidence of studies that exist in this regard, a key bacterium in the improvement of metabolic syndrome and therefore the symptoms of autism.

Author: Sergio Garcia