Moving microbiota research toward establishing causal associations that represent viable targets for effective public health interventions

摘要

Purpose: There appears to be great promise in developing targeted interventions that exploit the complex interactions between commensal microbiota colonizing various anatomic sites and the health of the human host. Although data about variations in microbiota composition across various population groups are accumulating, there remains a limited understanding of the driving forces behind the observed intraindividual and interindividual differences in microbiota.