The microbial pharmacists within us: a metagenomic view of xenobiotic metabolism

By Peter Spanogiannopoulos, Elizabeth N. Bess, Rachel N. Carmody, Peter J. Turnbaugh. Nature Reviews Microbiology, 2016

637 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Although the importance of human genetic polymorphisms in therapeutic outcomes is well established, the role of our 'second genome' (the microbiome) has been largely overlooked. In this Review, we highlight recent studies that have shed light on the mechanisms that link the human gut microbiome to the efficacy and toxicity of xenobiotics, including drugs, dietary compounds and environmental toxins. Continued progress in this area could enable more precise tools for predicting patient responses and for the development of a new generation of therapeutics based on, or targeted at, the gut microbiome. Indeed, the admirable goal of precision medicine may require us to first understand the microbial pharmacists within.

Subfields: Molecular Biology, Physiology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/027f72f9ecd0d469c258a6919d36c0b7db94f2cd

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In Molecular Biology

1. J. Cryan
2. Ted G. Dinan
3. Rob Knight
4. Jeff Hasty
5. L. Zitvogel
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In Physiology

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Citations in the corpus

• The microbiome and human cancer (2021, background): “Gut microbes are intimately involved in the biotransformation of xenobiotics, including cancer drugs, with unintended consequences for clinical cancer control (99).”
• Gut instincts: microbiota as a key regulator of brain development, ageing and neurodegeneration (2017, background): “A growing body of literature is now focusing on the collateral impact of various medications outside of CNS drugs on microbiome composition (Lu et al. 2015; Spanogiannopoulos et al. 2016).”
• Extensive impact of non-antibiotic drugs on human gut bacteria (2018, neutral): “As gut bacteria, in turn, can also modulate drug efficacy and toxicity 39, the emerging drug-microbe network could guide therapy and drug development.”