New perceptions of the gut microbiota: Implications for future research

The gut microbiota of people is a bacterial community of great biodiversity that is individualistic, interactive, self-regulating, and highly homeostatic. The community is metabolically active, degrading polymeric substances derived from human secretions and food and producing predictable ratios of major metabolic end-products. The phylogenctic make up of die community has been elucidated reliably using nucleic acid-based methods and is dominated by members of the Bacteroides-Prevotella, Eubacterium rectale-Clostridium coccoides, and C leptum divisions. Bacterial and community genomics and immunological approaches hold the key to deriving new knowledge about the gut community and its relationship with the human host.