Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Aug 7, 2015; 21(29): 8787-8803
Published online Aug 7, 2015. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v21.i29.8787
Role of the normal gut microbiota
Sai Manasa Jandhyala, Rupjyoti Talukdar, Chivkula Subramanyam, Harish Vuyyuru, Mitnala Sasikala, D Nageshwar Reddy
Sai Manasa Jandhyala, Rupjyoti Talukdar, Chivkula Subramanyam, Harish Vuyyuru, Mitnala Sasikala, Department of Gastroenterology, Asian Institute of Gastroenterology, Asian Healthcare Foundation, Hyderabad 500082, India
Rupjyoti Talukdar, D Nageshwar Reddy, Asian Institute of Gastroenterology, Hyderabad 500082, India
Author contributions: Jandhyala SM reviewed the literature and drafted the manuscript; Talukdar R conceived, drafted, reviewed the manuscript and provided intellectual inputs; Vuyyuru H reviewed the literature and drafted the manuscript; Subramanyam C drafted the manuscript and provided intellectual inputs; Sasikala M drafted the manuscript and provided intellectual inputs; and Reddy DN reviewed the manuscript and provided intellectual inputs.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Dr. Rupjyoti Talukdar, Department of Gastroenterology, Asian Institute of Gastroenterology, Asian Healthcare Foundation, 6-3-661 Somajiguda, Hyderabad 500082, India. rup_talukdar@yahoo.com
Telephone: +91-40-23378888 Fax: +91-40-23324255
Received: November 15, 2014
Peer-review started: November 17, 2014
First decision: March 26, 2015
Revised: May 10, 2015
Accepted: July 3, 2015
Article in press: July 3, 2015
Published online: August 7, 2015
Core Tip

Core tip: In this review we present an up-to-date overview of the normal gut microbiota, their functional implications in health, and the mechanistic insights that orchestrate these functions. We also discuss the characteristics that define a healthy gut microbiota and factors that shape and perturb the gut microbial diversity and functions. The evidence that we present here is a composite of observational and experimental studies on humans, germ free and humanized mice.