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The microbial communities that inhabit our gastrointestinal tract, termed the gut microbiota, are well known to play a fundamental role in many host processes, and our understanding of these complex communities continues to advance at a rapid pace. Research has characterized the gut microbiota in health and disease at increasing resolution, aided by the continuous development of tools and approaches. Greater mechanistic understanding of how our microbial partners, including the non-bacterial members, contribute to or protect against disease is a major focus of recent initiatives with the ultimate goal of translating these findings into clinical applications.
This collection brings together Research, Reviews and Comment published in several Nature journals covering key topics on the gut microbiota. The selected content has been published over the past year in Nature, Nature Microbiology, Nature Medicine, Nature Genetics, Nature Communications, Nature Reviews Microbiology, Nature Reviews Genetics and Nature Reviews Gastroenterology and Hepatology, some of which have been made freely available for 6 months, thanks to support from Yakult Honsha Co., Ltd.
A screen of more than 1,000 drugs shows that about a quarter of the non-antibiotic drugs inhibit the growth of at least one commensal bacterial strain in vitro.
Phospholipase Ds (PLDs) transform phosphatidylcholine to choline, which can then be converted to disease-associated trimethylamine. Here, PLDs are identified in gut bacteria that support growth of other bacteria and are potential therapeutic targets.
Comprehensive fecal metabolic profiling in 786 individuals from TwinsUK provides insights into the influence of host genetics and gut microbial composition on metabolites that may mediate microbiome-associated phenotypes.
Complex microbial communities shape the dynamics of various environments. In this Review, Knight and colleagues discuss the best practices for performing a microbiome study, including experimental design, choice of molecular analysis technology, methods for data analysis and the integration of multiple omics data sets.
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Metagenomic sequencing analysis of stool samples from 903 children as part of the TEDDY study shows that breastfeeding was the most important factor associated with microbiome structure, and the cessation of breast milk resulted in faster maturation of the gut microbiome.
An analysis of more than 10,000 metagenomes from the TEDDY study provides a detailed functional profile of the gut microbiome in relation to islet autoimmunity, and supports the protective effects of short-chain fatty acids in early-onset type 1 diabetes.
The authors compare human fecal viromes from three isolated villages of the Amazon rain forest with those from city dwellers. They report that the diversity of human viruses is not reduced in isolated villages, suggesting frequent viral introductions or increased susceptibility to enteric infections.
The effects of caesarean section delivery on mother-to-neonate transmission of microbiota are unclear. Here the authors show that caesarean section delivery can affect the transmission of specific microbial strains and the immunomodulatory potential of the microbiota.
Gut microbial dysbiosis in infancy is associated with childhood atopy and the development of asthma. Here, the authors show that gut microbiota perturbation is evident in the very earliest stages of postnatal life, continues throughout infancy, and can be partially rescued by Lactobacillus supplementation in high-risk for asthma infants.
The human gut microbiome has been associated with many health factors, but variability between studies limits exploration of these effects. Here, Jackson et al. analyse gut microbiota associations for 38 common diseases and 51 medications within >2700 members of the TwinsUK cohort.
Recent microbiome genome-wide association studies have identified numerous associations between human genetic variants and the gut microbiome. Here, the authors review how genetic variation in the host can alter the composition of the gut microbiome towards a disease state, with a focus on disorders of immunity and metabolism.
Lipopeptides secreted by Bacillus bacteria block quorum sensing by Staphylococcus aureus and thereby inhibit the growth of this opportunistic pathogen in the gut, suggesting why people in rural Thailand who are colonized by Bacillus are not also colonized by S. aureus.
Genome-wide and metagenome-wide association study of 92 cardiovascular-diseases-related proteins identifies genetic and microbial factors that explain 76.6% of inter-individual variation, highlighting the role of gut microbiome in cardiovascular disease.
Current nutritional approaches to prevent and treat various diseases have limited effectiveness. Here, Zmora et al. review the major principles underlying effects of dietary constituents on the gut microbiota, resolving aspects of the diet–microbiota–host crosstalk, and present the promises and challenges of incorporating microbiome data into dietary planning.
Antimicrobial peptide resistance genes are found to be widespread in the gut microbiome but are exchanged at lower rates compared to antibiotic resistance genes, with functional compatibility between bacteria being important for gene exchange.
Klebsiella pneumoniae from the gut microbiota of patients with primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC) can damage the intestinal epithelial barrier, resulting in bacterial translocation and T helper 17 cell responses in the liver, indicating a role in PSC pathogenesis.
Integration of longitudinal gut metagenomic datasets from children in Finland, Estonia and Russian Karelia reveals high strain-level diversity, which consequently impacts the functional capabilities of the early life microbiome.
Statistical analyses of a metagenomics-sequenced human cohort identify a relatively minor role for genetics in determining microbiome composition and show that several human phenotypes are as strongly associated with the gut microbiome as with host genetics.
Stool microbiota composition correlates with the ethnic backgrounds of people living in the same city, suggesting that geographical location and ethnicity have distinct effects on microbiota.
Here the authors show that the human gut microbiome can recover after a clinically relevant, broad-spectrum antibiotic treatment and characterization of the resistome indicates that antibiotic resistance genes can impact the recovery process.
Finely tuned control of strain engraftment and abundance in the mouse gut microbiota was achieved using the marine polysaccharide porphyran, which could exclusively be used by an introduced subset of wild-type or genetically modified Bacteroides strains.
Here the authors have characterized the growth of 96 human gut bacteria on a range of defined media, providing valuable insights into their metabolic capabilities and unique media for future studies.
Roseburia intestinalis is a butyrate-producing member of the gut microbiome that can use dietary plant polysaccharides to alter host metabolism, transcription and epigenetics, and lower inflammation and endotoxaemia, resulting in reduced atherosclerosis.
Preliminary evidence from two cases suggests that fecal microbiota transplantation may provide a viable treatment option for a severe adverse effect of immune checkpoint blockade therapy in patients with cancer.
Tungstate inhibits molybdenum-cofactor-dependent microbial respiratory pathways and shows potential as a selective treatment for microbial imbalances that occur during inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract.
Quantitative metagenomics reveals an altered bacteriophage community in a mouse model of colitis, which overlaps with that observed in humans with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), providing a tool for interrogating phage dynamics in IBD.
Attention has turned to the gut microbiota in liver disease, including alcoholic and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease and hepatocellular carcinoma. This Review describes gut–liver communications, including evidence from animal and human studies, compares conditions within the liver disease spectrum and highlights key points for designing microbiome-based studies for liver disease research.
Faecal microbiota richness is considered a hallmark of gut health and stability. However, in healthy hosts, richness would primarily reflect the stage of ecosystem development through the gut, rather than community resilience. This Comment discusses the need to rethink microbiome biomarkers in the context of gut ecology.
Culturomics was developed to culture and identify unknown bacteria that inhabit the human gut. In this Review, Raoult and colleagues discuss the development of culturomics and how it has extended our understanding of bacterial diversity, and highlight the potential implications for human health.
Comparing the microbiomes of great apes enables an evolutionary perspective on microbial communities. This approach is revealing not only new insights about humans and what differentiates us from our closest relatives but also the factors that influence microbiome composition and the ways in which microbiomes diverge.