GUT MICROBIOTA IN HEALTH AND DISEASE

Dr. Arpita Ray and Dr. A. K. Das*

ABSTRACT

Human body is home to 100 trillion microbes, that constitutes bacteria, fungi, archae, viruses, and eukaryotes which play an essential role in maintenance of health and have been found to be associated with various pathological processes. The human gut microbiome and its role in health and disease has been a subject of extensive research. The gut microbiota has a role to play in the normal biological, physiological, nutritional and immune processes and an imbalance in them has been linked to several diseases such as atopy, irritable bowel syndrome, inflammatory bowel disease, type 1 Diabetes mellitus, infectious diseases, gastrointestinal cancers, liver diseases,respiratory diseases as well as certain neurological, psychological and autoimmune diseases. A lot of research and advances are on going in the field of microbial DNA sequencing, metabonomics and proteomics in order to understand the implications of host-microbiome interaction and thereby pave the way for the possible targeted therapy in diseases where the microbiota has been found to play a pivotal role.

Keywords: Microbiome, Human Gut, Dysbiosis, Probiotic.