A new study published in Nature Chemistry on October 25 shows that "eating soil" can also regulate the gut microbiome and treat enteritis!

Inspired by soil components, the research team constructed a soil bionic material consisting of montmorillonite (a natural soil component), starch granules, and liquid metals by synthetic methods, which has the ability to regulate microbial functions.

This new material with responsive and regulatory functions can not only improve the efficiency of microbial synthesis of chemicals but also regulate the dysbiosis of intestinal flora and restore intestinal microecology, which has potential applications in biomanufacturing and biomedical fields.

Microbial communities in the natural environment are an important but under-researched area. Soil is recognized as the most complex and rich environment for biodiversity in the earth system, and according to statistics, the number of microorganisms per gram of soil can reach tens of billions, species up to millions, thousands of colonies, more than 200 meters of mycelium, etc. The diversity of prokaryotes in the soil is greater than the sum of other biological species in the natural world by three orders of magnitude.

Soil bionic materials can respond to lasers, solvents, external forces, etc., making the materials chemically inhomogeneous from the atomic to the macroscopic level, enabling different components of that chemical system to be chemically redistributed, sensed, and modified by writing and erasing to perform new functions, on which the research team can then conduct additional series of studies.

The team established a mouse model of gut microbial disruption, and after the mice "ate" the soil bionic material developed by the team, they found that their disrupted gut microflora was restored and the ecological model was re-established; in addition, it was found that the material could be used to treat acute enteritis induced by sodium dextran sulfate. The therapeutic experiments of the soil bionic material on the mice model confirmed the regulation of intestinal microbiota and the treatment of enteritis, suggesting that "eating soil" can treat intestinal diseases.

The research results have two main applications, one is to promote microbial growth and improve the efficiency of microbial synthesis of biobased chemicals, and the other is to regulate the intestinal microecology, thus achieving the effect of treating intestinal diseases."