Gut microbiota participates and remodels host metabolism: From treating patients to treating their gut flora

Abstract

In this editorial, we comment on Liu et al’s article published in the recent issue of the World Journal of Gastroenterology. Biochemically and pathologically, Liu et al proved that the urate-lowering activity of leech total protein (LTP) was mainly attributed to the rectification of gut microbiota. Specifically, we noticed the change in Bacteroides and Akkermansia after LTP administration. Both bacteria have been reported to alleviate metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis and other chronic metabolic diseases. LTP was administrated through intragastric manners. Most possibly, LTP would be digested by the gut microbiota further. The anti-hyperuricemia effects should, to the most possible extent, be exerted by the peptides or their secondary metabolic products. Human gut microbiota communicates with other organs through metabolites generated by the microbes or co-metabolized with the host. Whether the anti-hyperuricemia effect could be partially ascribed to the microbiota metabolites also deserves to be discussed. Although metabolomics analysis was performed for serum samples, fecal metabolomics was highly advocated which could facilitate exact mechanism explanation. This study implied that gut microbiota contains many unexplored targets with different therapeutic potentials. It is foreseeable that utilizing these targets can avoid the impairment or side effects of directly using human targets to some extent.

Keywords: Gut microbiota; Metabolism; Metabolomics; Hyperuricemia; Peptides

Core Tip: In this article, we comment on Liu et al’s article about intragastric administration of leech total protein could modulate gut microbiota and alleviate hyperuricemia. We speculated that the digestive peptides either generated by the gut flora or by the host digestive system might contribute to the gut microbiota reshaping. Specifically, the study implied that gut microbiota contains many unexplored targets with different therapeutic potentials. If a drug target is developed based on the gut microbiota, it will circumvent the unwanted effects of direct human target utilization. This drug target development notion change will revolutionize the traditional disease-treating paradigm.