Cani, Patrice D.
[UCL]
The distal gut harbours microbial communities that outnumber our own eukaryotic cells. The contribution of the gut microbiota to the development of several diseases (e.g. obesity, type 2 diabetes, steatosis, cardiovascular diseases and inflammatory bowel diseases) is becoming clear, although the causality remains to be proven in humans. Global changes in the gut microbiota have been observed by a number of culture-dependent and culture-independent methods, and while the latter have mostly included 16S ribosomal RNA gene analyses, more recent studies have utilized DNA sequencing of whole-microbial communities. Altogether, these high-throughput methods have facilitated the identification of novel candidate bacteria and, most importantly, metabolic functions that might be associated with obesity and type 2 diabetes. This review discusses the association between specific taxa and obesity, together with the techniques that are used to characterize the gut microbiota in the context of obesity and type 2 diabetes. Recent results are discussed in the framework of the interactions between gut microbiota and host metabolism.
Bibliographic reference |
Cani, Patrice D.. Gut microbiota and obesity: lessons from the microbiome.. In: Briefings in Functional Genomics, Vol. 12, no.4, p. 381-387 (2013) |
Permanent URL |
http://hdl.handle.net/2078.1/134589 |