Intestinal bacterial transformation – a nonnegligible part of Chinese medicine research

Abstract

Intestinal bacteria play an essential part in the metabolism of the constituents of herbal drugs, and a lot of investigations have been done to unveil their functions and mechanisms in modification of these constituents and their effect. This review provides a progressive description of intestinal bacterial transformation with respect to properties, reactions, correlation with the effect of herbal drugs, research interests, and methodology. In addition, the problems encountered during the investigation are addressed and perspectives are proposed.

Keywords:

• intestinal bacteria
• biotransformation
• constituents
• herbal drugs

Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by NSFC (Nos 81073018 and 81274044) and the Project Sponsored by the Scientific Research Foundation for Returned Overseas Chinese Scholars, State Education Ministry (Investigation on The Integral Mechanism of Chinese Medicine Using Flos Trollii as A Model Drug), and the National Key Technology R&D Program of China (2011BAI07B08).