Manipulating the Microbiota

Manipulating the gut microbiota to maintain health and treat disease

BACKGROUND The intestinal microbiota composition varies between healthy and diseased individuals for numerous diseases. Although any cause or effect relationship between the alterations in the gut microbiota and disease is not always clear, targeting the intestinal microbiota might offer new possibilities for prevention and/or treatment of disease. OBJECTIVE Here we review some examples of ma...

Enteral-tube-feeding diarrhoea: manipulating the colonic microbiota with probiotics and prebiotics.

Diarrhoea is a common and serious complication of enteral tube feeding. Its pathogenesis involves antibiotic prescription, enteropathogenic colonization and abnormal colonic responses, all of which involve an interaction with the colonic microbiota. Alterations in the colonic microbiota have been identified in patients receiving enteral tube feeding and these changes may be associated with the ...

Manipulating the Plasmodium genome.

Genome manipulation, the primary tool for assigning function to sequence, will be essential for understanding Plasmodium biology and malaria pathogenesis in molecular terms. The first success in transfecting Plasmodium was reported almost ten years ago. Gene-targeting studies have since flourished, as Plasmodium is haploid and integrates DNA only by homologous recombination. These studies have ...

Manipulating the Gut Flora

The gastrointestinal (GI) tract represents a complex ecosystem in which a balance exists between the intestinal microflora and the host. The microflora comprises predominantly of facultative anaerobes e.g. lactobacillus and obligate anaerobes e.g. bifidobacterium. Aerobic organisms are not present in the GI tract of healthy individuals except Pseudomonas in very small numbers. Most of the gut m...

Manipulating the calcium receptor.