Cell papers may help predict gut colonization by bacterial treatments

Two papers published in Cell from researchers at Weizmann Institute of Science show the limitations and pitfalls of probiotics in colonizing the human gut, which could guide their use and that of microbiome-based therapies in humans, particularly following antibiotic treatment.

In the first paper, the team used multi-omic sequencing to examine human gastrointestinal tracts. Since fecal samples could not be entirely correlated with gut microbiome composition, the researchers examined microbial colonization directly via colonoscopy and enteroscopy...