GutXen: Modeling the impact of gut microbial metabolism on food-born xenoestrogen exposure

The gut microbiome is emerging as a metabolic organ of potentially equal importance as the liver. Thus, the GutXen project focuses on developing new approach methods that replace animal toxicity testing for microbial metabolites. Hop polyphenols that naturally occur in beer, and which are converted to estrogenic prenylated naringenins by gut bacteria, serve as a primary example for the development of gut-competent physiologically-based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) models and techniques to perform quantitative in vitro to in vivo extrapolation (qIVIVE).

The GutXen project is a collaboration of Dr. Georg Aichinger, Maja Stevanoska and Prof. Shana Sturla with external pageWageningen Food Safety Researchcall_made (WFSR) and is supported by a research grant from the external pageSwiss Center for Applied Human Toxicologycall_made (SCAHT).