Gut dysbiosis and its epigenomic impact on disease

Abstract The intestinal microbiome is an assortment of microbes that inhabit the gastrointestinal tract. It has long been thought that the microbiome contributes to health and disease, and recent technological advances in culture-independent microbiome analyses have hastened the study of microbiome compositional variation and subsequent functional host-microbiome interactions. Microbiome composition is regulated by a variety of environmental interactions, including diet, as well as host-specific interactions. Herein, we review normal microbiome development as well as common mechanisms of dysbiosis in the context of pathophysiology. Host-microbiome interactions have been associated with a variety of disease states, and more recent data is beginning to elucidate mechanistic insight into how host-microbiota interactions promote specific diseases. While treatments that directly manipulate the microbiome composition are not currently available, this is a promising area of research that may be able to treat and prevent both gastrointestinal and systemic diseases.