Gut Microbiota and Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Dear Colleagues,

There is a general consensus that inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is strictly related to alterations to the gut microbiota (dysbiosis). Changes in the gut saprophytic microbial composition and load highly impact the immune, neuronal, and endocrine responses in the host, representing a fundamental contributor to IBD pathogenesis. Although a straightforward demonstration of a causative connection between IBD and dysbiosis has not been given yet, in recent years, experimental strategies combining different metabolomic, metagenomic, metatranscriptomic, and proteomic approaches have highlighted the mechanistic contribution of microbes and their metabolites to IBD onset and development. When translating to clinics, however, the majority of clinical investigations are represented by retrospective studies, examining the microbiota composition after the onset of the disease while large-scale, highly controlled prospective clinical studies, allowing us to obtain a more comprehensive understanding of the pathophysiological relevance of the gut microbiota in IBD, are lacking. Indeed, a fundamental but yet unsolved issue concerns the possibility that changes in gut microbial ecology and function and the involvement of specific bacterial species may be considered as predictive for clinical questions relevant to IBD. Since IBD patients are represented by genetically and clinically defined subpopulations with highly specific microbial composition and function, the possibility to evaluate the patients’ microbial profile may represent a predictive clinical tool fostering the basis for a personalized microbiome-based therapy for IBD.

Dr. Cristina Giaroni
Guest Editor

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