The diagnostic and prognostic potential of gut bacteria in inflammatory bowel disease

ABSTRACT

The gut microbiome serves as a signaling hub that integrates environmental inputs with genetic and immune signals to influence the host’s metabolism and immunity. Gut bacteria are intricately connected with human health and disease state, with specific bacteria species driving the characteristic dysbiosis found in gastrointestinal conditions such as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD); thus, gut bacteria changes could be harnessed to improve IBD diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment. The advancement in next-generation sequencing techniques such as 16S rRNA and whole-genome shotgun sequencing has allowed the exploration of the complexity of the gut microbial ecosystem with high resolution. Current microbiome data is promising and appears to perform better in some studies than the currently used fecal inflammation biomarker, calprotectin, in predicting IBD from healthy controls and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). This study reviews current data on the differential potential of gut bacteria within IBD cohorts, and between IBD and other gastrointestinal diseases.

KEYWORDS:

• Gut bacteria
• diagnosis
• prognosis
• inflammatory bowel disease
• gastrointestinal disease
• microbiota

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This study was sponsored by the 2022 Jiangsu Excellent postdoctoral program (Grant no. 2022ZB634), the National Natural Science Fund of China (Grant no. 82250410378), the project of Zhenjiang key research and development plan (social development) (Grant no. SH2019025 and SH2021066), the open project of clinical medical research center of Gynecology and Traditional Chinese Medicine of Zhenjiang (Grant no. ss202204-KFC01) and the innovation training program for English-taught international undergraduates of Jiangsu University in 2022.