Abstract
Prophylactic use of functional foods and the design of nutraceuticals has a far-reaching public health benefit. Understanding the phenotypic manipulations needed to take advantage of gut microbial ecology is fundamental to bioengineering and the food, diet and health industries. This work considers a hypothetical adjustment of gut microbiota by an introduced transgenic bacterial strain that contributes to increased exposure of essential omega-3 (n-3) poly-unsaturated fatty acids, the socalled fish oils. Absorption of the essential poly-unsaturated fats from food is dominated by the omega-6 (n-6) fats over the omega-3 (n-3) fats. Unfortunately, long-term depleted levels of n-3-containing lipids in blood plasma is a high-risk indicator for outcomes such as metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular disease and diabetes-related conditions.
In our vignette, a genetically modified strain converts excessive dietary n-6 into bioavailable n-3 in the gut. Maintaining a long-term co-existence between indigenous gut bacteria and the transgenic strain is the challenge. Game theory is an appropriate formalism for exploring such conflicts. We show that long-term co-existence is predicted if the two forms of bacteria engage in the Snowdrift game. Our model explores putative mechanisms for addressing metabolic syndrome and related conditions by locally increasing n-3 production by the transgenic gut bacteria. Our model suggests long-term therapeutic supplementation by a functional probiotic food is possible without detriment to the indigenous bacteria.