ABOVE: THE SCIENTIST STAFF
A few years ago, microbiologist Catherine Lozupone and colleagues at the University of Colorado were studying metabolism-related health problems in men and women infected with HIV. Previous research had suggested that T cells with higher metabolic activity might be more susceptible to viral infection.
But while sequencing the people’s gut bacteria, the team turned up differences in microbiome composition between men who have sex with men (MSM) and men who have sex with women (MSW). As HIV risk is known to be elevated in MSM compared to MSW, the researchers set out to investigate whether these microbiome differences might be playing a role in that risk.
The researchers compared gut microbiome samples from MSM—both HIV-positive and HIV-negative men deemed high-risk due to factors such as a history of unprotected sex—with samples from HIV-negative MSW. They found that, regardless of HIV status, MSM had consistently different microbiome ...
