Klebsiella aerogenes, a bacterium associated with poor clinical outcomes in hospitals, is more prevalent in the gut of premenopausal women with depression than in premenopausal women without it, reports a study published today (March 17) in Cell Metabolism. The authors identified a key enzyme in the bacterium’s genome that degrades the ovarian hormone estradiol. Mice fed this bacterium or a different one engineered to carry the enzyme had lower estradiol levels and evidence of depressive-like behaviors compared to control mice.
Declining estradiol levels have been linked to female depression in humans. After finding that the levels of this steroid hormone were significantly lower in 91 menopausal women with depression than in 98 menopausal women without this mood disorder, a team at the Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University, China, explored the influence of the gut microbiome on these differences. By incubating the fecal microbes of samples from either of both groups ...
