Dominguez-Bello Maria G, Blaser Martin J
Department of Biology, University of Puerto Rico, USA.
Microbes Infect. 2008 Jul;10(9):1072-6. doi: 10.1016/j.micinf.2008.07.036. Epub 2008 Aug 13.
The possibility of using microbes to maintain health, and to prevent or treat disease is a topic as old as microbiology. However, one factor impeding the introduction of effective probiotics has been our very limited understanding of the composition of the human microbiome, as well as the biological requirements for these organisms. With advances in understanding the microbiome and its metagenome in humans and other mammals, we now can build a more robust scientific basis to develop probiotic strategies. Increasing knowledge of intramicrobial competition and cooperation, as well as host-microbe cross-signaling, will facilitate design of new probiotics and the modeling of their deployment, leading to eventual clinical trials.
利用微生物来维持健康、预防或治疗疾病的可能性，是一个与微生物学一样古老的话题。然而，阻碍有效益生菌引入的一个因素是，我们对人类微生物组的组成以及这些微生物的生物学需求了解非常有限。随着对人类和其他哺乳动物微生物组及其宏基因组认识的进展，我们现在能够建立一个更坚实的科学基础来制定益生菌策略。对微生物内部竞争与合作以及宿主-微生物交叉信号传导的了解不断增加，将有助于新型益生菌的设计及其应用模式的建立，最终促成临床试验。
