Enterogenic metabolomics signatures of depression: what are the possibilities for the future

ABSTRACT

Introduction

An increasing number of studies indicate that the microbiota-gut-brain axis is an important pathway involved in the onset and progression of depression. The responses of the organism (or its microorganisms) to external cues cannot be separated from a key intermediate element: their metabolites.

Areas Covered

In recent years, with the rapid development of metabolomics, an increasing amount of metabolites has been detected and studied, especially the gut metabolites. Nevertheless, the increasing amount of metabolites described has not been reflected in a better understanding of their functions and metabolic pathways. Moreover, our knowledge of the biological interactions among metabolites is also incomplete, which limits further studies on the connections between the microbial-entero-brain axis and depression.

Expert Opinion

This paper summarizes the current knowledge on depression-related metabolites and their involvement in the onset and progression of this disease. More importantly, this paper summarized metabolites from the intestine, and defined them as enterogenic metabolites, to further clarify the function of intestinal metabolites and their biochemical cross-talk, providing theoretical support and new research directions for the prevention and treatment of depression.

KEYWORDS:

• Microbiome
• metabolite
• depression
• gut
• metabolomics
• microbiome-gut-brain axis

Article highlights

• We have summarized metabolites from the intestine, and defined them as enterogenic metabolitesm.

• We have summarized the latest information on the metabolites currently detectable in the intestine, highlighting their involvement in the onset and progression of depression.

• We have summarized the biological connections between metabolites and microorganisms.

Declaration of interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Reviewer disclosures

Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial or other relationships to disclose.

Author contributions

Yangdong Zhang and Xueyi Chen contributed equally to this manuscript.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/14789450.2023.2279984

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation Project of China [No. 81820108015, No. 82201683], the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation [No. 2021M693926, No. 2020TQ0393, and No. 2020M683634XB], Special Funding for Chongqing Postdoctoral Research Projects [2021XMT001].