The gut microbiome and its use as a target for novel therapeutic modalities

Abstract

The human microbiome is the complete microorganisms in addition to their genes inhabiting the human body. The gut microbiome is the most important part of the human microbiome. The gut microbiome performs many benefits to the host. It can ferment non digestible substrates, boost the immune system, suppress the growth of harmful microbiota, modulate gut development, metabolize xenobiotics, produce short-chain fatty acids, and produce favorable vitamins to the host. Gut dysbiosisis a factor in many disease states as obesity, various metabolic disorders, inflammatory bowel syndromes, cardiovascular diseases, and cancer. So novel therapies that can improve the human microbiome especially gut microbiome can be an addition to the conventional therapeutics. Novel therapeutics that improves the gut microbiome includes probiotics, prebiotics, synbiotics, psychobiotics and some metabolites. Other modalities that affect the microbiome were invented as faecal microbiota transplantation, phages, and emerging miRNAs. Fecal microbiota transplantation is now an approved method for management of patients of recurrent pseudomembranous colitis.

Keywords

• microbiome
• microbiota
• dysbiosis
• gut microbiome
• faecal microbiota transplantation