Nature: accident! Intestinal microbes actually decide whether the drug is effective or not!

June 7, 2019 / BIOON / - ever wonder why a drug that works for others doesn't seem to work for you? You may want to examine your gut to find out Researchers have found intestinal bacteria that process more than 150 drugs, and they have found genes that give the bacteria this ability The Yale team said the findings highlight the role of gut bacteria in people's response to drugs Photo source: http://cn.bing.com "it is possible for us to use genes or bacterial species to predict the ability of an individual's gut flora to metabolize a drug," Maria Zimmermann kogadeeva, co-author of the study, said at a university press conference Zimmermann kogadeeva added: "this work is the first step in identifying biomarkers, which can help doctors prescribe the safest and most effective drugs for individual patients "She is a postdoctoral fellow at Andrew Goodman laboratory, senior research author, Department of Microbiology, and Institute of Microbiology, Yale University In the new study, the researchers investigated whether and how 271 drugs are metabolized by 76 gut bacteria The results show that nearly two-thirds of drugs are metabolized by at least one bacterium The researchers then identified a number of genes that enable bacteria to metabolize drugs The team found that there were significant differences in the number of these genes in healthy people In some cases, these differences explain why some people's gut microbiome metabolizes drugs quickly, while others respond to the same drug slowly or not at all Goodman's team pointed out that in the past, it was thought that drug metabolism was only carried out by organs such as the liver "We hope this study provides a useful first step in understanding the contribution of microorganisms to drug metabolism," co-author Michael Zimmermann said at a press conference He is also a postdoctoral researcher at Goodman lab "We believe that these methods can reveal how gut microbiota modulate our response to non pharmaceutical compounds, such as dietary nutrition and environmental factors," Zimmermann said "The study was recently published in nature Reference: Michael Zimmermann et al Mapping human microorganism drug metabolism by gut bacteria and their genes, nature (2019) Doi: 10.1038/s41586-019-1291-3