Fecal microbiota transplantation for treatment of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease: Mechanism, clinical evidence, and prospect

Figure 1 Homeostatic and disrupted gut-liver crosstalk, and mechanism of fecal microbiota transplantation for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease treatment. Left: Healthy/homeostatic condition; Middle: In non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), the intestinal barrier can be disrupted, which facilitates the translocation of microbes and microbial metabolites to the liver, thus promoting hepatic steatosis, inflammation and fibrosis; Right: Fecal microbiota transplantation is used to recover microbial diversity and abundance and restore homeostatic gut-liver crosstalk, and consequently attenuate the symptoms of NAFLD; FMT: Fecal microbiota transplantation.

Figure 2 Flow diagram for the process of study selection. ALT: Alanine aminotransferase; AST: Aspartate aminotransferase; BMI: Body mass index; HDL-C: High-density lipoprotein cholesterol; HOMA-IR: Homeostatic model assessment of insulin resistance; LDL-C: Low-density lipoprotein cholesterol.

Figure 3 Pooled analysis depicting the effects of fecal microbiota transplantation on serum triglycerides, cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, alanine aminotransferase, aspartate aminotransferase, homeostatic model assessment of insulin resistance and body mass index measured by weighted mean difference in patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. A: Serum triglycerides; B: Cholesterol; C: Low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C); D: High-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C); E: Alanine aminotransferase (ALT); F: Aspartate aminotransferase (AST); G: Homeostatic model assessment of insulin resistance (HOMA-IR); H: Body mass index (BMI). FMT: Fecal microbiota transplantation; NAFLD: Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease; WMD: Weighted mean difference.