Expanding Links Between Gut Microbiota and Bowel Inflammation

Emerging deep-sequencing technologies have highlighted a potential role of gut microbes in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) pathogenesis; however, causation is difficult to prove in most human studies because the inflamed environment adversely impacts microbial composition and function. Two mechanistic studies published recently in Nature provide examples for both detrimental and beneficial impacts of microbes, or their products, on the IBD-related Th17 pathway, focusing on understudied features—fungi and bile acids.