Intestinal Microbiota in Health and Disease: Modern Concepts PDF

Preface

Mucosal surfaces are home to a complex microbiota, which rapidly colonizes the tissues at birth and bestows important nutritional, metabolic and protective functions which benefi t the host. The numerous and diverse microbial communities residing at the vast intestinal mucosal surface have a particularly important role to play in human health, any dysbiosis of this microbiota being an underlying factor in a variety of clinical diseases. As such, the intestinal microbiota is the subject of intense and rapidly advancing research. Recent progress in molecular microbiology, bioinformatics and ecology in particular, are providing new insight into the role of the intestinal microbiota in health and revealing hitherto unexplored means to prevent or treat certain diseases.

Through this book, we sought to provide the reader with an appraisal of the most recent advances in the fi eld. To this end, we have invited recognized experts from the academic and medical communities and from the pharmaceutical and food industry, to provide a treatise on a range of topics that address host-microbe interactions in the gut and the consequences of these interactions for the host.

The opening chapters of the book discuss how microbes interact with host cells in specifi c intestinal niches, become established members of the intestinal microbiota and impact the development and function of a healthy immune system. The next chapters describe how pathogens overcome host defences and exploit the underlying mechanisms to infect the host. Chapters in the second half of the book then address the characteristics and the mechanisms leading to dysbiosis of the microbiota and how this culminates in the development of infl ammatory bowel disease, obesity, infection or stress. In this context, authors also discuss how manipulation of gut ecology and the use of probiotic microorganisms are credible therapeutic strategies to treat diseases and conditions affecting both the inside and the outside the gastrointestinal tract.

We are confi dent that the authors have provided a balanced review of the fi eld and that the contents of this book will offer new information to students and experienced researchers alike.

We sincerely thank each author for the outstanding quality of their respective contributions and we trust that you, like us, will fi nd the contents of this book informative, fascinating and a pleasure to read.