Interactions of Plant-Derived Foods and Medicines with the Gut Microbiome

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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