Year: 2020
Type: article
Abstract: Human gut microbiota plays critical roles in physiology and disease. Our understanding of ecological principles that govern the dynamics and resilience of this highly complex ecosystem remains rudimentary. This knowledge gap becomes more problematic as new approaches to modifying this ecosystem, such as fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT), are being developed as therapeutic interventions. Here we present an ecological framework to understand the efficacy of FMT in treating conditions associated with a disrupted gut microbiota, using the recurrent Clostridioides difficile infection as a prototype disease. This framework predicts several key factors that determine the efficacy of FMT. Moreover, it offers an efficient algorithm for the rational design of personalized probiotic cocktails to decolonize pathogens. We analyze data from both preclinical mouse experiments and a clinical trial of FMT to validate our theoretical framework. The presented results significantly improve our understanding of the ecological principles of FMT and have a positive translational impact on the rational design of general microbiota-based therapeutics.
Source: Nature Communications
Authors: Yandong Xiao, Marco Tulio Angulo, Songyang Lao, Scott T. Weiss, Yang-Yu Liu
Language: English
Subfield: Infectious Diseases
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $5,380
Funders: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Natural Science Foundation of China, China Scholarship Council, National Institutes of Health, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
Awards: Multi-omic approaches to mechanisms of vitamin D, environmental influences, and the microbiome on asthma, Long-term health consequences of birth by cesarean section, G1681861429, G2094919514, G4404169877, G4570938435, Functional Redundancy of Human Microbiome and its Implication in Fecal Microbiota Transplantation, (2 of 2) Genetic Epidemiology of COPD, G6169845905, G692714771, Pathophysiologic and Therapeutic Mechanisms of Aspirin Exacerbated Respiratory Disease
OpenAlex ID: W3039446139