BL-RQ-001 · Open
Does restoring colonocyte butyrate oxidation lower luminal oxygen availability in humans, as it does in mouse models?
The mouse epithelial-oxygenation work is the mechanistic backbone of the ecology argument. Its human quantitative status is unknown.
Relation to the Host Capacity Model
HCM integrates the animal oxygen-gradient result into a human framework. That bridge is an inference, not evidence.
Measurements required to answer it
- Mucosal oxygen tension or a validated surrogate
- Faecal/mucosal butyrate with method reporting
- Facultative anaerobe relative abundance
Confounders
- Diet and fibre intake variation
- Transit time
- Sampling site (stool is not mucosa)
- Antibiotic and PPI exposure
Decision criteria
A human study measuring mucosal oxygenation before and after a butyrate-restoring intervention with paired ecology data.
What would count against the Host Capacity Model
Human mucosal oxygenation shows no relationship with butyrate availability or facultative anaerobe expansion.
Registered claims this question bears on
- BL-CLAIM-COL-002 · Animal evidence
In mice, butyrate-driven PPAR-gamma signalling maintains epithelial oxygen consumption and keeps luminal oxygen tension low.
- BL-CLAIM-COL-003 · HCM integration inference
In a subset of people with persistent gut-centred chronic illness, impaired colonocyte butyrate oxidation and facultative-anaerobe expansion may form a self-reinforcing loop that resists single-target treatment.
Entities
- Colonocyte — The absorptive epithelial cell of the colon. Its energy metabolism is unusual: it derives a large share of its ATP from beta-oxidation of the short-chain fatty acid butyrate rather than from glucose.
- Butyrate — A four-carbon short-chain fatty acid produced by bacterial fermentation of fibre in the colon and used as a primary respiratory fuel by colonocytes.
- Butyrate oxidation — Mitochondrial beta-oxidation of butyrate inside colonocytes. Because this pathway consumes oxygen, its activity is one determinant of how much oxygen reaches the gut lumen.
- Epithelial oxygenation — The oxygen gradient across the colonic mucosa. A steep gradient — low luminal oxygen — is a normal feature of a healthy colon and favours obligate anaerobes.
Cite this question
Attallah, M. BL-RQ-001: Does restoring colonocyte butyrate oxidation lower luminal oxygen availability in humans, as it does in mouse models? BiomeLogic research question registry. https://biomelogic.net/research-questions/BL-RQ-001
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