TY - JOUR
T1 - Synthetic microbial communities (SynComs) of the human gut
T2 - Design, assembly, and applications
AU - van Leeuwen, Pim T.
AU - Brul, Stanley
AU - Zhang, Jianbo
AU - Wortel, Meike T.
N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of FEMS.
PY - 2023/3/1
Y1 - 2023/3/1
N2 - The human gut harbors native microbial communities, forming a highly complex ecosystem. Synthetic microbial communities (SynComs) of the human gut are an assembly of microorganisms isolated from human mucosa or fecal samples. In recent decades, the ever-expanding culturing capacity and affordable sequencing, together with advanced computational modeling, started a ''golden age'' for harnessing the beneficial potential of SynComs to fight gastrointestinal disorders, such as infections and chronic inflammatory bowel diseases. As simplified and completely defined microbiota, SynComs offer a promising reductionist approach to understanding the multispecies and multikingdom interactions in the microbe-host-immune axis. However, there are still many challenges to overcome before we can precisely construct SynComs of designed function and efficacy that allow the translation of scientific findings to patients' treatments. Here, we discussed the strategies used to design, assemble, and test a SynCom, and address the significant challenges, which are of microbiological, engineering, and translational nature, that stand in the way of using SynComs as live bacterial therapeutics.
AB - The human gut harbors native microbial communities, forming a highly complex ecosystem. Synthetic microbial communities (SynComs) of the human gut are an assembly of microorganisms isolated from human mucosa or fecal samples. In recent decades, the ever-expanding culturing capacity and affordable sequencing, together with advanced computational modeling, started a ''golden age'' for harnessing the beneficial potential of SynComs to fight gastrointestinal disorders, such as infections and chronic inflammatory bowel diseases. As simplified and completely defined microbiota, SynComs offer a promising reductionist approach to understanding the multispecies and multikingdom interactions in the microbe-host-immune axis. However, there are still many challenges to overcome before we can precisely construct SynComs of designed function and efficacy that allow the translation of scientific findings to patients' treatments. Here, we discussed the strategies used to design, assemble, and test a SynCom, and address the significant challenges, which are of microbiological, engineering, and translational nature, that stand in the way of using SynComs as live bacterial therapeutics.
KW - Bacteria
KW - Gastrointestinal Diseases
KW - Gastrointestinal Microbiome
KW - Humans
KW - Microbiota
KW - human gut microbiome
KW - live bacterial therapeutic
KW - rational design
KW - synthetic microbial consortium
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85159649186&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - https://doi.org/10.1093/femsre/fuad012
DO - https://doi.org/10.1093/femsre/fuad012
M3 - Review article
C2 - 36931888
SN - 0168-6445
VL - 47
JO - FEMS microbiology reviews
JF - FEMS microbiology reviews
IS - 2
M1 - fuad012
ER -