Tacrolimus dosing to establish therapeutic levels in recipients of organ transplants is a challenging task because of much interpatient and intrapatient variability in drug absorption, metabolism, and disposition. In view of the reported impact of gut microbial species on drug metabolism, we investigated the relationship between the gut microbiota and tacrolimus dosing requirements in this pilo...

BACKGROUND Iron is essential for the growth and virulence of many pathogenic enterobacteria, whereas beneficial barrier bacteria, such as lactobacilli, do not require iron. Thus, increasing colonic iron could select gut microbiota for humans that are unfavorable to the host. OBJECTIVE The objective was to determine the effect of iron fortification on gut microbiota and gut inflammation in Afr...

Background/Aims Current models of Crohn's disease (CD) describe an inappropriate immune response to gut microbiota in genetically susceptible individuals. NOD2 variants are strongly associated with development of CD, and NOD2 is part of the innate immune response to bacteria. This study aimed to identify differences in fecal microbiota in CD patients and non-IBD controls stratified by NOD2 geno...

The gastrointestinal microbiota affects the metabolism of the mammalian host and has consequences for health. However, the complexity of gut microbial communities and host metabolic pathways make functional connections difficult to unravel, especially in terms of causation. In this study, we have characterized the fecal microbiota of hamsters whose cholesterol metabolism was extensively modulat...

The paper by Shen, et al. reports on efforts to engineer the gut microbiota to treat hyperammonemia by decreasing the levels of urease positive gut bacteria.1 After treatment of mice with oral antibiotics and PEG to deplete indigenous bacteria, mice were inoculated with a consortium of 8 bacteria with low urease gene content. This new gut microbiota was relatively stable for up to 120 days. The...

Laboratory rats are commonly used in life science research as a model for human biology and disease, but the composition and development of their gut microbiota during life is poorly understood. We determined the fecal microbiota composition of healthy Sprague Dawley laboratory rats from 3 weeks to 2 y of age, kept under controlled environmental and dietary conditions. Additionally, we determin...

In another feature article, Dr Paul Fitzmorris and Dr Ashwani K. Singal discuss surveillance and diagnosis of hepatocellular carcinoma, the third leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide. Physicians continue to underutilize surveillance techniques, which can identify hepatocellular carcinoma at an early stage and thereby improve prognosis. A practical approach to therapeutic drug monitor...

The composition of the intestinal microbiota has wide reaching effects on the health of an individual, including the development of protective innate immune responses.  In this report, a fecal transplantation approach was used to determine whether resistance to food borne listeriosis was dependent on the murine gut microbiota.  Transplantation of BALB/c/By feces did not increase the susceptibil...

Fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) has been reported as a safe and effective therapy in patients with refractory and recurrent Clostridium difficile infection (CDI). FMT has also been reported as a promising therapy in patients with ulcerative colitis (UC). Both, CDI and UC, are believed to be caused by dysbiosis, such as altered compositions or decreased diversity of the intestinal microbi...

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...