The Human Microbiota in Health and Disease

Abstract

Trillions of microbes have evolved with and continue to live on and within human beings. A variety of environmental factors can affect intestinal microbial imbalance, which has a close relationship with human health and disease. Here, we focus on the interactions between the human microbiota and the host in order to provide an overview of the microbial role in basic biological processes and in the development and progression of major human diseases such as infectious diseases, liver diseases, gastrointestinal cancers, metabolic diseases, respiratory diseases, mental or psychological diseases, and autoimmune diseases. We also review important advances in techniques associated with microbial research, such as DNA sequencing, metabonomics, and proteomics combined with computation-based bioinformatics. Current research on the human microbiota has become much more sophisticated and more comprehensive. Therefore, we propose that research should focus on the host-microbe interaction and on cause-effect mechanisms, which could pave the way to an understanding of the role of gut microbiota in health and disease. and provide new therapeutic targets and treatment approaches in clinical practice.

Keywords

Microbiome / Health / Infectious disease / Liver diseases / Gastrointestinal malignancy / Metabolic disorder / Microbiota technology / Probiotics

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by grants from the National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program, 2013CB531401), the Major Science and Technology Program of Zhejiang Province (2014C03039), and the Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province (R16H260001). We acknowledge Drs. Chunlei Chen, Bo Li, Jing Guo, Ding Shi, Qiongling Bao, Silan Gu, Yanfei Chen, Kai Zhou, Qixiang Luo, Ruiqi Tang, and Xiangyang Jiang for the literature search and the preparation for the manuscript. We also thank the reviewers for their thoughtful and helpful comments.

Compliance with ethics guidelines

Baohong Wang, Mingfei Yao, Longxian Lv, Zongxin Ling, and Lanjuan Li declare that they have no conflict of interest or financial conflicts to disclose.

Funding

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

2017 2017 THE AUTHORS. Published by Elsevier LTD on behalf of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and Higher Education Press Limited Company. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).