Pancreas and microbiome

Abstract

Via the secretion of proteases, peptides and bicarbonate, the pancreas strongly impacts the microbiota environment in the small bowel. Inflammatory and malignant pancreatic diseases are associated with distinct changes in gut microbiota composition, mostly analyzed from fecal contents. Between April 2022 and March 2023 several papers have been published, adding to the body of knowledge on these changes, most of them observational studies on rather small groups of patients. However, significant differences in microbiota structure between patients with mild and severe courses of acute pancreatitis were observed, pointing even to a predictive role of microbiota composition at the admission of patients with acute pancreatitis during the course of the disease. During the development of chronic pancreatitis, significant alterations in gut microbiota composition in humans and in a mouse model were evident in published data. Furthermore, samples from pancreatic cancer tissue from long-term surviving patients harbor distinct microbiota compared to those surviving short-term. However, data derived from large and prospectively analyses of patients with pancreatic disease opening the window for gut microbiota directed therapies to influence the course of inflammatory or malignant pancreatic disease is still lacking.

Keywords

• pancreatitis
• microbiome
• microbiota
• gut microbiota
• review.