Copyright
©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Oct 7, 2015; 21(37): 10487-10492
Published online Oct 7, 2015. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v21.i37.10487
Published online Oct 7, 2015. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v21.i37.10487
Microbiome as mediator: Do systemic infections start in the gut?
Melissa Latorre, Suneeta Krishnareddy, Daniel E Freedberg, Division of Digestive and Liver Diseases, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, NY 10023, United States
Author contributions: Latorre M, Krishnareddy S and Freedberg DE all contributed to this paper.
Supported by Mentored Career Development Award through the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences’ Clinical and Translational Science Awards program, No. NIH KL2 TR000081 (in part).
Conflict-of-interest statement: No potential conflicts of interest relevant to this article were reported. Dr. Freedberg was supported in part by a mentored career development award through the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences’ Clinical and Translational Science Awards program (NIH KL2 TR000081).
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: Daniel E Freedberg, MD, Assistant Professor of Medicine, Division of Digestive and Liver Diseases, Columbia University Medical Center, 630 West 168th Street, PH7, New York, NY 10023, United States. def2004@cumc.columbia.edu
Telephone: +1-212-3053427
Received: January 29, 2015
Peer-review started: January 30, 2015
First decision: April 14, 2015
Revised: April 28, 2015
Accepted: August 31, 2015
Article in press: August 31, 2015
Published online: October 7, 2015
Peer-review started: January 30, 2015
First decision: April 14, 2015
Revised: April 28, 2015
Accepted: August 31, 2015
Article in press: August 31, 2015
Published online: October 7, 2015
Core Tip
Core tip: The role of the intestinal microbiome in the development and treatment of Clostridium difficile (C. difficile) infection is well established. However, the intestinal microbiome is emerging as a crucial mediator in the development of systemic disease and non-gastrointestinal infection. If the pathways linking gut bacteria to systemic infections can be elucidated, it may become possible to intervene upon the microbiome before disease occurs. This understanding would move clinicians beyond fecal microbial transplant for C. difficile infection to paradigm-changing treatments for gut-derived systemic infections.