# Distal gut microbiome targets of host anti-proteolytic proteins during colitis > **NIH NIH R21** · SCRIPPS RESEARCH INSTITUTE, THE · 2021 · $266,250 ## Abstract Title: Distal gut microbiome targets of host anti-proteolytic proteins during colitis ABSTRACT Our long-term goal is to advance our understanding of the distal gut microbiome from its basis in genomics with chemical biology and quantitative metaproteomics approaches. Over the last several years, we have developed a combination of chemical probe-based technologies, liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) proteomics, and bioinformatic analyses as approaches to interrogate and quantitate specific enzyme families in microbiome proteomes. We recently showed that colitic mice have a dramatic elevation in microbiome-secreted proteases within the distal gut relative to healthy mice using these combined methods. Correspondingly, we observe a significant increase in host anti-proteolytic proteins (APPs). Gut inflammation can be abated in colitis mouse models upon introduction of human APPs a-1-antitrypsin or elafin. While we posit that a-1-antitrypsin and elafin (and other APPs) reduce inflammation via inhibition of aberrant proteolytic activities, both APPs also have antimicrobial activity. Thus, the anti-inflammatory mechanism by which antitrypsin and elafin act could be primarily, or in part, attributable to altering bacterial composition. Our primary question is if APPs target microbial proteases. Here, we will elucidate the microbiome (and host) protein targets of six APPs overproduced in response to distal gut inflammation. These six APPs collectively target proteases from the serine, cysteine, and metallo subfamilies. We have purified all APPs of interest and aim to employ the proteins as “bait” to determine if these APPs primarily target the inhibition of bacterial proteases. We will subsequently identify and quantitate the APP-captured proteins with our LC-MS/MS metaproteomics methods. We propose to focus our APP-enrichment strategy and metaproteomics on a well- established adoptive T cell transfer murine model of chronic colitis and directly compare to control mice raised under identical conditions. Our preliminary data confirms that a-1-antitrypsin irreversibly binds a unique collection of secreted proteins within colitic microbiome samples compared to controls. This is significant, as expression levels of host elastase and trypsin (targets of a-1-antitrypsin) are similar between the colitis and control groups. Over the next two years, we anticipate that we will identify several families of host APP-targeted bacterial proteases upregulated in colitic mice, as classified by sequence and/or structural homology. This list of proteases will help guide and focus future biochemical, cell-based, and animal model research on specific protease families as potential inflammatory agents (and therapeutic targets), as well as provide an optimized APP-enrichment methodology for translation into human IBD patients and other microbiome-related diseases. ## Key facts - **NIH application ID:** 10114917 - **Project number:** 1R21AI156674-01 - **Recipient organization:** SCRIPPS RESEARCH INSTITUTE, THE - **Principal Investigator:** Howard C Hang - **Activity code:** R21 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.) - **Funding institute:** NIH - **Fiscal year:** 2021 - **Award amount:** $266,250 - **Award type:** 1 - **Project period:** 2020-12-18 → 2022-11-30 ## Primary source NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10114917 ## Citation > US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10114917, Distal gut microbiome targets of host anti-proteolytic proteins during colitis (1R21AI156674-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10114917. Licensed CC0. --- *[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*