Microbiome and omics in IBD patients

What is it about?

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a chronic gastrointestinal disease of unknown etiology, involving complex interactions between the gut microbiome and host immune response. The microbial dysbiosis is well documented in IBD and significantly influences the host metabolic pathways. Thus, a metabolomic fingerprint resulting from the influence of gut dysbiosis in IBD could aid in assessing the disease activity. PubMed, Medline, Science Direct, and Web of Science were searched for studies exploring the association between microbiome and metabolome in IBD patients in the last 5 years. Additionally, references of cited original articles and reviews were further assessed for relevant work. We provide a literature overview of the recent metabolomic studies performed on patients with IBD. The findings report alterations in the metabolite levels of these patients. We also discuss the gut dysbiosis observed in IBD and its influence on host metabolic pathways such as lipids, amino acids, short-chain fatty acids, and others. IBD, being a chronic idiopathic disease, requires routine monitoring. The available non-invasive markers have their limitations. The metabolite changes account for both dysbiosis and its influence on the host's immune response and metabolism. A metabolome approach would thus facilitate the identification of surrogate metabolite markers reflecting the disease activity.

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Photo by julien Tromeur on Unsplash

Photo by julien Tromeur on Unsplash

Why is it important?

We emphasized the gut dysbiosis seen in patients with IBD and how it affects the host's essential metabolic pathways for lipids, amino acids, short-chain fatty acids metabolism, and other substances. However, there are limitations to the currently available non-invasive indicators. Dysbiosis and its effects on the host's immune system and metabolism can be explained by metabolite alterations. Thus, a metabolome approach would make it easier to find substitute metabolite markers that represent disease activity.

Perspectives