Gut microbiota

"Enteric bacteria" redirects here. For other uses, see Enteric bacteria (disambiguation).
Escherichia coli, one of the many species of bacteria present in the human gut

Gut microbiota, gut microbiome, or gut flora are the microorganisms, including bacteria, archaea, fungi, and viruses, that live in the digestive tracts of animals.[1][2] The gastrointestinal metagenome is the aggregate of all the genomes of the gut microbiota.[3][4] The gut is the main location of the human microbiome.[5] The gut microbiota has broad impacts, including effects on colonization, resistance to pathogens, maintaining the intestinal epithelium, metabolizing dietary and pharmaceutical compounds, controlling immune function, and even behavior through the gut–brain axis.[4]

The microbial composition of the gut microbiota varies across regions of the digestive tract. The colon contains the highest microbial density of any human-associated microbial community studied so far, representing between 300 and 1000 different species.[6] Bacteria are the largest and to date, best studied component and 99% of gut bacteria come from about 30 or 40 species.[7] Up to 60% of the dry mass of feces is bacteria.[8] Over 99% of the bacteria in the gut are anaerobes, but in the cecum, aerobic bacteria reach high densities.[5] It is estimated that the human gut microbiota have around a hundred times as many genes as there are in the human genome.

  1. ^ Moszak, M; Szulińska, M; Bogdański, P (15 April 2020). "You Are What You Eat – The Relationship between Diet, Microbiota, and Metabolic Disorders-A Review". Nutrients. 12 (4): 1096. doi:10.3390/nu12041096. PMC 7230850. PMID 32326604.
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference Engel was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Segata, N; Boernigen, D; Tickle, TL; Morgan, XC; Garrett, WS; Huttenhower, C (14 May 2013). "Computational meta'omics for microbial community studies". Molecular Systems Biology. 9: 666. doi:10.1038/msb.2013.22. PMC 4039370. PMID 23670539.
  4. ^ a b Saxena, R.; Sharma, V.K (2016). "A Metagenomic Insight Into the Human Microbiome: Its Implications in Health and Disease". In Kumar, D.; S. Antonarakis (eds.). Medical and Health Genomics. Elsevier Science. p. 117. doi:10.1016/B978-0-12-420196-5.00009-5. ISBN 978-0-12-799922-7.
  5. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference Prescotts was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference Guarner and Malagelada 2003b was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ Cite error: The named reference Beaugerie L and Petit JC was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ^ Cite error: The named reference Stephen and Cummings was invoked but never defined (see the help page).