Effects of Antibiotics on Gut Microbiota

Abstract

The gut microbiota influences essential human functions including digestion, energy metabolism, and inflammation by modulating multiple endocrine, neural, and immune pathways of the host. Its composition and complexity varies markedly across individuals and across different sites of the gut, but provides a certain level of resilience against external perturbation. Short-term antibiotic treatment is able to shift the gut microbiota to long-term alternative dysbiotic states, which may promote the development and aggravation of disease. Common features of post-antibiotic dysbiosis include a loss of taxonomic and functional diversity combined with reduced colonization resistance against invading pathogens, which harbors the danger of antimicrobial resistance. This review summarizes the antibiotic-related changes of the gut microbiota and potential consequences in health and disease.

Empiric antibiotic use in allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation: should we avoid anaerobe coverage?

“…5 Antibiotics, however, are able to damage the commensal gut microflora to various degrees, depending on the antibiotic class. 6,7 This becomes of increasing interest as recent studies with advanced DNA sequencing techniques of gutresident microorganisms begin to provide detailed relationships between the gut microbiota and clinical outcomes of allo-HCT, including overall survival (OS), 8 transplant-related mortality (TRM), 9 acute GVHD, [8][9][10][11][12] relapse, 13 and development of bacteremia. 14,15 Given the emerging evidence that the preserved diversity of gut microbiota is correlated with better clinical outcomes after allo-HCT, 8,9,12 concerns have been raised regarding the practice of GD for prophylaxis as well as the use of broadspectrum antibiotics for NF that target anaerobic bacteria of the gut (anaerobes).…”

Intestinal microbiota changes after solid organ transplant: a systematic review.

“…Antibiotic effects depend on composition, dosage, spectrum, route of administration and duration of treatment 45,46 . These medications are not always harmless to the transplant patient and, in most cases, their frequent use is associated with intestinal dysbiosis and production of resistant pathogens 12 . A retrospective cohort study has reported a 50% incidence of infectious episodes in kidney transplant recipients during the first months after transplantation and concluded that the most frequent infection involved the urinary tract, followed by cytomegalovirus, surgical incision and lung infections 47 .…”

“…Conversely, the intestinal microbiota may influence solid organ transplant outcomes. The gut microbiota of organ transplant recipients is expected to undergo changes in its composition, as the majority of patients use antibiotics as prophylaxis or treatment of infections during initial hospitalization [12][13][14][15][16] . Since changes in the gut microbiota are associated with metabolic disarrangements in both the obese and the MS population, as described above [7][8][9] , similar effects might be observed in organ transplant recipients.…”

Gallbladder microbiota variability in Colombian gallstones patients

“…Knowing the core gallbladder microbiota of a population in non-acute inflammatory conditions is an important issue, because some of this bacteria can become pathogenic and there could be no other opportunity to isolate them because microbiota may change, as in the gut, by the inflammatory microenvironment and previous antibiotic use [41].…”