Our focus
The human intestinal tract is inhabited by 10-100 trillion microbes consisting of thousands of different species that have co-evolved with the human host. This microbial community, termed the gut microbiota, has an immense capacity to affect host biology.
It is fundamental to many processes, including development of our immune system, processing of otherwise indigestible dietary polysaccharides, and production of vitamins and hormones. However, increasing evidence indicates that perturbations of the gut microbiota contribute to a range of diseases, including obesity and cardiometabolic diseases.
Our approach
We take a translational approach to investigate the role of the gut microbiota in cardiometabolic diseases, focusing on diabetes, hepatic steatosis, atherosclerosis, and heart failure.
By identifying associations between gut bacteria and/or their metabolites and cardiometabolic markers in large population-based cohort studies, we generate hypotheses that could explain how the microbiota contributes to metabolic diseases.
Our hypotheses are tested using a variety of tools, including gnotobiotic mice, primary cell culture, and bioreactors to establish causality and determine the underlying molecular mechanisms.
Recently published
Our team has co-authored a large number of highly impactful original research and literature review articles.
Gut Microbial Metabolite Imidazole Propionate Impairs Endothelial Cell Function and Promotes the Development of Atherosclerosis
Article, Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology, May 2025
Our former team member Alba Carreras and our current team member Katharina Beck are co-authors of this article, studying how ImP produced by the gut microbes promotes the development of atherosclerosis...
Data-driven cluster analysis identifies distinct types of metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease
Article, Open Access, Nature Medicine, Dec 09, 2024
This article on MASLD heterogeneity includes three co-authors from our lab; Rima Chakaroun, Lisa Olsson and Valentina Tremaroli...
GLP-1R signaling modulates colonic energy metabolism, goblet cell number and survival in the absence of gut microbiota
Online ahead of print, Molecular Metabolism, March 2024
In collaboration with Daniel J Drucker at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute, Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto, we made the surprising observation more than 10 years ago that GLP-1R deficient mice dies...
The interplay between dietary fatty acids and gut microbiota influences host metabolism and hepatic steatosis
Open Access article, Nature Communications, 1 September, 2023
In this paper first author Marc Schöler aim to determine how dietary fatty acid composition affects the gut microbiota profile, microbiota-mediated metabolic regulation, and development of hepatic steatosis...
Microbially produced imidazole propionate is associated with heart failure and mortality
Open access article, JACC Heart Failure, April, 2023
This article, by first author Antonio Molinaro, was recently published online in JACC Heart Failure and shows how the gut microbial metabolite ImP is increased in individuals with heart failure and is a predictor of overall survival...
Our team
Our laboratory’s location, within Sahlgrenska University Hospital, provides unique opportunities to engage with clinicians and study participants and pursue basic and translational research.
To achieve our overarching aim of improving human health by targeting the gut microbiota, we have developed a research group comprising experts in microbiology, molecular biology, biochemistry, metabolomics, proteomics, epigenetics, physiology, bioinformatics, and medicine from around the world.
Work in the Bäckhed group is supported by:
