Microbial Endocrinology: An Evolution-Based Shared Mechanism Determining Microbiota's Influence on Health and Disease

摘要

The ability of bacteria to both produce and respond to the panoply of neuroendocrine hormones that are more commonly associated with mammalian organisms is becoming increasingly recognized as playing a pivotal role in both disease pathogenesis as well as the maintenance of homeostasis. The mammalian host consists of >90% prokaryotic microorganisms with the scientific and clinical perception, and understanding, of host-microorganism interaction mainly from the perspective of a 'dumb bug', in other words an organism which simply replicates by binary fission but otherwise has limited interaction with its host. The range of interactions between host and microorganism are widely recognized to have both positive and negative consequences for the host, but rarely are these interactions considered to have as a common mechanism a shared use and recognition of neuroendocrine hormones. The recognition of such a common pathway carries important implications to our understanding of how the vast majority of microorganisms both inourgutand in the general environment influence both the pathogenesis of disease and homeostasis. Thisconvergence of seemingly disparate fields, microbiology, endocrinology and neurophysiology, is the emerging translational medicine discipline known as microbial endocrinology. Given that immune cell function can be modulated by host neuroendocrine hormones, one of the areas in which microbial endocrinology has been proposed to have particular application is that of probi-otics in which selection of a probiotic based on its neu-rochemical profile to specifically target host immuno-logical processes may provide for a rationale design in the selection of probiotics for both inflammatory-mediated disease and homeostasis.