The gut microbiota and inflammatory bowel diseases

Abstract

Inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) are chronic diseases of unclear etiology that affect over 1 million individuals in the United States and over 2.5 million people in Europe(1). However, they are also expanding globally, affecting populations in Asia, South America, and the Middle East as they become more industrialized. These diseases are believed to arise from the convergence of genetic, environmental, and microbial factors that trigger aberrant immune and tissue responses, resulting in intestinal inflammation. Advances in cultivation-independent investigations, experimental models, and bioinformatics approaches have improved our understanding of the role of gut microbiota in IBD. However, determining and understanding the functional consequences of gut dysbiosis and altered host-microbiota interactions in IBD remain a challenge due to the limits of current experimental models and difficulty in establishing causal links in human-based investigations. Continued development of new methodologies and improvements in clinical study design are needed to better understand the interplay of genetic, microbial, and immunological factors in IBD. This knowledge can then be applied clinically to improve therapeutic strategies and outcomes for IBD.

Black Raspberries and Their Anthocyanin and Fiber Fractions Alter the Composition and Diversity of Gut Microbiota in F-344 Rats

“…Gut microbiota plays many important roles to maintain the host health, including fermentation of indigestible dietary compounds, synthesis of vitamins and other beneficial metabolites, and controlling the balance of our immune system (17, 18). Dysbiosis defines a situation in which the composition and/or activities of the gut microbiota are altered due to a deleterious state of our body (19), and has been shown to associate with many diseases, especially obesity (20, 21), diabetes (5, 22), metabolic syndrome (23), cardiovascular disease (24), inflammatory bowel disease (25) and colorectal cancer (26). …”

Acute graft-versus-host disease of the gut: considerations for the gastroenterologist

“…As the complex interplay between the immune system and the gut micro-biota is further elucidated, the intestinal bacteria might become novel therapeutic targets in the management of gastrointestinal acute GVHD. Gut dysbiosis has been observed in both acute GVHD and IBD 18,19 . Moreover, acute GVHD and IBD share clinical, histopathological and genetic features 20,21 .…”

Intestinal microbiota, fecal microbiota transplantation, and inflammatory bowel disease

“…Thus, manipulating the intestinal microbiota represents a potential treatment of IBD. 2 One form of manipulating the microbiota is through fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT), where fecal microbiota from a healthy donor are transplanted into the distal GI tract of a patient. FMT has already emerged as a successful therapy for Clostridium difficile infection, [5][6][7] and is currently being explored as a potential treatment of IBD.…”