Intestinal colonization, microbiota, and probiotics
Section snippets
Source of Original Microbiota
The basis of the healthy gut microbiota is derived from the mother. The mother’s microbiotic composition and the original inoculum provided at birth depend on poorly understood genetic factors. Diet, environment, and stress factors during pregnancy and birth influence the mother’s fecal microbiota composition and, consequently, the inoculum transferred to the infant at birth.12, 13 The microbiota of a newborn develops rapidly after birth and is initially strongly dependent on feeding practices
Host–microbe interaction: from commensalism to mutualism
Normal intestinal microbiota are characterized as a complex collection and balance of microorganisms that normally inhabit the healthy GI tract. The indigenous bacteria sometimes have been classified as potentially harmful or health-promoting. Most of them, however, are part of the normal commensal flora. This term indicates a relationship between organisms of 2 or more different species in which 1 species derives benefits from the association while the other(s) remain(s) unharmed or
Role of probiotics
Probiotics have been defined by the International Life Sciences Institute Europe as “viable microbial food supplement[s] which when taken in the right dose beneficially influence the health of the host.”10 Practically the same definition of probiotics is used by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the World Health Organization.11 These definitions require that safety and efficacy be demonstrated scientifically for each strain and each product.
Aberrant gut microbiota: clinical consequences
Specific imbalances or deviations in the intestinal microbiota may make humans more vulnerable to intestinal inflammatory diseases and systemic diseases beyond the intestinal environment. Specific Bifidobacterium species in the healthy infant gut are the most predominant and metabolically active organisms; specific clostridia also are often present. Changes in their quantitative and qualitative composition appear to serve as useful indicators of deviations from the balanced microbiota. Other
Perspectives
Advancing genomic research will provide data on host–microbe interactions to identify key processes of microbiotic development and maintenance. These include nutrient–microbe interactions and a detailed knowledge of the transfer of microbial communities from parent to infant. Such data should provide the basis for the development of new probiotics.53
Probiotic genome analysis will predict their properties and interactions in human use, allowing their application to human studies of specific
Conclusion
The healthy infant microbiota acts as an organ to utilize nutrients and also as a defense mechanism against harmful environmental exposures. Deviations in composition can be related to multiple disease states within the intestine but also beyond it. Similarly, components of the human intestinal microbiota or organisms entering the intestine may have both harmful and beneficial effects on human health.
The current available information focuses mostly on the role of infant microbiota and the first
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Seppo Salminen is a recipient of a Bristol Myers Squibb–Mead Johnson Unrestricted Nutrition Research grant. This is a Nutrition, Allergy, Mucosal Immunology, and Intestinal Microbiota (NAMI) research group report. Mead Johnson sponsored the symposium and provided an honorarium for conference attendance, presentation of the article, and submission of a manuscript. The authors are entirely and exclusively responsible for its content.