The Therapeutic Potential of the “Yin-Yang” Garden in Our Gut

Abstract

The gut microbiota is made up of trillion microorganisms comprising bacteria, archaea, and eukaryota living in an intimate relationship with the host. This is a highly diverse microbial community and is essentially an open ecosystem despite being deeply embedded in the human body. The gut microbiome is continually exposed to allochthonous bacteria that primarily originates from food intake. Comprising more than 1000 bacterial species, the gut microbiota endows so many different functions-so many that can be considered as an endocrine organ of its own. In this book chapter, we summarize the importance of gut microbiota in the development and maintenance of a healthy human body. We first describe how the gut microbiota is formed during the birth of a human baby and how a healthy microflora is established overtime. We also discuss how important it is to maintain the microbiota in its homeostatic condition. A discussion is also given on how alterations in the microbiota are characteristic of many diseased conditions. Recent investigations report that reestablishing a healthy microbiota in a diseased individual using fecal microbial transplant can be used as a therapeutic approach in curing many diseases. We conclude this chapter with a detailed discussion on fecal microbial transplants.

Role of Microbes in Human Health and Diseases

“…Furthermore, another Gram-negative oral bacteria Fusobacterium nucleatum was found to be abundant in Crohn's disease [116]. F. nucleatum was shown to be highly proinflammatory and protumorigenic [117][118][119]. The bacterium can activate the epithelial cell proliferation and induce a protomeric microenvironment, while inactivating the immunological tumor surveillance.…”

“…F. nucleatum was first shown to be highly enriched in tumors [117,122]. The bacterium produces the FadA antigen, a ligand of E-cadherin in the intestinal epithelial cells that activate the β-catenin pathway leading to uncontrolled cell growth [119]. Furthermore, F. nucleatum is shown to be overrepresented in the colonic mucosa in the cases where the CRC relapses postchemotherapy.…”