FMT

Advancement in the knowledge of the association between gut microbiota and various disease processes has paved the way for novel therapeutics.

Background and Aims: Hepatic encephalopathy (HE) remains one of the most debilitating complications of liver cirrhosis. Changes in gut microbiome composition have been linked to liver diseases and its complications including HE. Recent randomized controlled trials showed fecal microbiota transplantation to be safe and effective in HE treatment, however transferring unidentified live bacteria could cause various complications, including infections, especially in immunocompromised patients. This study aimed to evaluate the safety and efficacy of sterile fecal filtrate transfer (SFFT) for the modulation of the intestinal microbiome of patients with cirrhosis and HE. Methods: A custom-made air pressure filtration device was used for the sterile fecal filtrate preparation. Seven patients received SFFT from the same healthy donor. Patients were monitored at least 30 days after the procedure. Cognition tests, blood and stool sampling were performed to assess the safety and efficacy of SFFT on HE, liver function, and stool microbiome composition on follow-up days 7 and 30. Results: SFFT was well tolerated and resulted in fluctuations in the microbial composition of study participants: α-diversity increased in 4/7 of the patients, without robust engraftment of donors’ microbial composition as assessed by β-diversity analysis. No significant effect on cognition tests or liver function was noted after the procedure. One death occurred three months after the procedure, however, it was not related to the SFFT. Conclusions: Despite the effect on the gut microbiome, we did not observe robust improvement in patients’ liver function or HE cognition tests after the procedure.

Gut microbiome dysbiosis is common in patients with chronic liver diseases such as hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and plays an essential role in developing, diagnosing, and treating HCC. The pur...

The gut microbiota has important functions in the regulation of normal body functions. Alterations of the microbiota are being increasingly linked to various disease states. The microbiome has been manipulated via the administration of stool from animals or humans, for more than 1000 years. C …

Primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC) is an orphan, cholestatic liver disease that is characterized by inflammatory biliary strictures with variable progression to end-stage liver disease. Its pathophysiology is poorly understood. Chronic biliary inflammation is likely driven by immune dysregulation, …

Off-the-shelf FMT requires recipient-independent optimized FMT selection. Such a transplant can be from an optimal donor or from a cultured set of microbes. We have here shown the feasibility of both types of manipulations in mouse and human recipients. Video Abstract.

Companies covered in this report are Seres Therapeutics, Inc., Microbiotica, Enterome, Destiny Pharma plc, Taisho Pharmaceutical Holdings, AOBiome...

The Digestive Disease Week meeting 2023 covered a considerable variety of basic, translational, and clinical aspects of research in gastrointestinal and extraintestinal human health and disease. This post highlights the major takeaways from the Microbiome & Microbial Therapy sessions and unravels how they might impact daily basic research and clinical practice (part 2).

In-situ vaccination (ISV) utilizing nanoparticles (NPs) and therapeutic devices like focused ultrasound (FUS) can trigger immune-mediated killing of both treated and untreated cancer cells. However, the impact of confounding factors such as aging and gut microbiota composition on therapeutic outcome …

Age-associated impairment in antioxidant defense is an important cause of oxidative stress, and elderly individuals are usually associated with gut microbiota (GM) changes. Studies have suggested a potential relationship between the GM and changes in antioxidant defense in aging animals. Direct evid …

The experimental details reported in preclinical fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) protocols are highly inconsistent, variable, and/or incomplete. We therefore evaluated FMT from a human donor to antibiotic-induced microbial-depleted mice by exploring the effects of six techniques based on anti …

(1) Background: Fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) is an effective treatment for ulcerative colitis (UC). Metabolomic techniques would assist physicians in clinical decision-making. (2) Methods: Patients with active UC undergoing FMT were enrolled in the study and monitored for 3 months. We expl …

Neurogenic hypertension, a complex and multifactorial cardiovascular disorder, is known to be influenced by various genetic, environmental, and lifestyle factors. In recent years, there has been growing interest in the role of the gut microbiome in hypertension pathogenesis. The bidirectional commun …

The gut is host to a diverse array of microbiota that constitute a complex ecological system crucial to human physiology. Disruptors to the normal host microbiota, such as antimicrobials, can cause a loss of species diversity in the gut, reducing its ability to resist colonization by invading pathog …

The American Journal of Managed Care provides insights into the latest news and research in managed care across multimedia platforms.

ClinicalTrials.gov NCT03244644 (https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03244644).

An FDA-approved oral fecal microbiota therapeutic reduces the risk for recurrent Clostridioides difficile infection in high-risk patients compared with placebo, regardless of demographics or baseline risk factors, researchers reported.

Practical Use of VOWST (fecal microbiota live spores - bprk) for the Prevention of Recurrent Clostridioides difficile Infection

The gut is host to a diverse array of microbiota that constitute a complex ecological system crucial to human physiology. Disruptors to the normal host microbiota, such as antimicrobials, can cause a loss of species diversity in the gut, reducing its ability to resist colonization by invading pathog …

This study suggested that WMT might be a promising therapy for patients with IBS, especially those with comorbid sleep and psychological disorders.

Stephanie Culler is using genetically engineered, synthetic probiotics to overhaul treatments for a host of ailments.

Guidelines for microbiome analyses and FMT in pediatric patients and clinical studies investigating their benefits are absolutely necessary to improve the patient-centered care in pediatric gastroenterology. The long-term and successful establishment of pediatric FMT centers with standardized proced …

Objective: To investigate the clinical efficacy of fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) for treating steroid-refractory gastrointestinal acute graft-versus-host disease (GI-aGVHD) . Methods: This analysis included 29 patients with hematology who developed steroid-refractory GI-aGVHD …

Despite significant advances in therapies, heart failure (HF) remains a progressive disease that, once advanced, is associated with significant death and disability. Cardiac replacement therapies with left ventricular assist device (LVAD) and heart transplantation (HT) are the only treatment options …

Targeting the microbiome to improve outcomes in stem cell transplant

Disruption of the intestinal bacterial microbiota is frequently observed in the context of allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) and is particularly pronounced in patients who develop graft-versus-host disease (GVHD). Donor fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) restores gut microbial …

Dysbiosis of the gut microbiome is thought to be the developmental origins of the host's health and disease through the microbiota-gut-brain (MGB) axis: such as immune-mediated, metabolic, neurodegenerative, and neurodevelopmental diseases. Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and attention-deficit/hypera …

The human microbiota is a complex ecosystem that colonizes body surfaces and interacts with host organ systems, especially the immune system. Since the composition of this ecosystem depends on a variety of internal and external factors, each individual harbors a unique set of microbes. These differe …

Objective Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a multifactorial immune-mediated inflammatory disease of the intestine, comprising Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. By characterising metabolites in faeces, combined with faecal metagenomics, host genetics and clinical characteristics, we aimed to unravel metabolic alterations in IBD.Design We measured 1684 different faecal metabolites and 8 short-chain and branched-chain fatty acids in stool samples of 424 patients with IBD and 255 non-IBD controls. Regression analyses were used to compare concentrations of metabolites between cases and controls and determine the relationship between metabolites and each participant’s lifestyle, clinical characteristics and gut microbiota composition. Moreover, genome-wide association analysis was conducted on faecal metabolite levels.Results We identified over 300 molecules that were differentially abundant in the faeces of patients with IBD. The ratio between a sphingolipid and L-urobilin could discriminate between IBD and non-IBD samples (AUC=0.85). We found changes in the bile acid pool in patients with dysbiotic microbial communities and a strong association between faecal metabolome and gut microbiota. For example, the abundance of Ruminococcus gnavus was positively associated with tryptamine levels. In addition, we found 158 associations between metabolites and dietary patterns, and polymorphisms near NAT2 strongly associated with coffee metabolism.Conclusion In this large-scale analysis, we identified alterations in the metabolome of patients with IBD that are independent of commonly overlooked confounders such as diet and surgical history. Considering the influence of the microbiome on faecal metabolites, our results pave the way for future interventions targeting intestinal inflammation.Data are available on reasonable request. Tables containing the levels of faecal metabolites and bacterial taxa abundances are provided with the manuscript. The raw metagenomics, host genomics and phenotypic data used in this study are available from the European Genome–Phenome Archive data repository: 1000 Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) cohort (https://www.ebi.ac.uk/ega/datasets/EGAD00001004194), Lifelines DEEP cohort (https://www.ebi.ac.uk/ega/datasets/EGAD00001001991). This includes submitting a letter of intent to the corresponding data access committees. Codes are publicly available at: [https://github.com/GRONINGEN-MICROBIOME-CENTRE/Fecal\_Metabolites\_IBD][1] [1]: https://github.com/GRONINGEN-MICROBIOME-CENTRE/Fecal_Metabolites_IBD

Three therapeutic regulatory approvals in less than a year signal that the promise of the human microbiome may finally be paying off. All of the approved therapies focus on treating recurrent Clostridium difficile infection, but what is next for the field? With promising oncology-related trial results from a number of researchers and companies such as […]