Interactions of Plant-Derived Foods and Medicines with the Gut Microbiome
A special issue of Molecules (ISSN 1420-3049).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 January 2026 | Viewed by 3
Special Issue Editors
Interests: biologically active natural products; phytochemistry; food and agricultural chemistry; ethnobotany and ethnopharmacology
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: ethnic foods, biological activities and compositional evaluation of edible natural products
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Microbial communities within the gastrointestinal tract play a crucial role in maintaining health and preventing disease. While their homeostasis serves crucial salutary functions, inappropriate compositional changes can lead to dysbiosis and issues such as infections, inflammatory bowel disease, diabetes, cancer, atopy, and other autoimmune diseases. It is well established that plant-derived agents possess prebiotic, antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, and immunomodulatory properties, making them key modulators of the microbiome. However, the complexity of the system still leaves a significant knowledge gap regarding the mechanisms and types of interactions between molecular components of these products and the gut microbiome, as well as their impact on health and disease development. Therefore, this Special Issue invites original research and review articles that investigate in vitro, in vivo, in situ, and ex vivo interactions between plant-derived dietary and medicinal products and the mammalian gut microbiome. This includes their complex, isolated, and simulated forms, such as whole food matrices, plant extracts, phytochemicals, plant nutrients, animal models, clinical trials, whole stool cultures, microbial isolates, and standard strains. Such information will deepen understanding and knowledge, which is particularly useful for the medicinal and food industries in the development of new plant-derived prebiotics, herbal food supplements, phytochemicals, food nutrients, phytopharmaceuticals, and functional foods.
Prof. Dr. Ladislav Kokoska
Guest Editor
Dr. Tomas Kudera
Guest Editor Assistant
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Keywords
- anti-inflammatory effect
- antimicrobial activity
- fermented foods
- gut metabolism
- gut microbiota
- herbal product
- immunomodulatory effect
- microbiome therapy
- phytochemical
- plant-based diet
- postbiotics
- prebiotic effect
- probiotic microorganisms
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