GI highlights from the literature

Basic scienceA spoonful of medicine helps the microbiota adapt

Maier L, Pruteanu M, Kuhn M et al. Extensive impact of non-antibiotic drugs on human gut bacteria. Nature 2018; 555 (7698):623–628.

Non-antibiotic drugs can affect the gut microbiome. This study aimed to systematically profile the effects of marketed drugs on individual gut bacteria. Nearly 1200 drugs were tested, three-quarters of which were human targeted and one-quarter of which were antimicrobials. Drugs were screened at 20 µM in vitro against 40 representative human gut bacterial species, all found in the healthy human microbiome. Of the antimicrobials, 78% of antibiotics were active against at least one bacterial species and more than half of antivirals were active. Interestingly 24% of the human-targeted drugs, from all therapeutic classes, exhibited anticommensal activity. Those bacteria with higher abundance across healthy individuals were most susceptible to human-targeted drugs, such as Eubacterium rectale and Bacteriodes vulgatus. Concordance...

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