Gut Microbiome and Health

Gut Microbiome and Health is an international, open-access, peer-reviewed journal dedicated to advancing the scientific and clinical understanding of the gut microbiome’s role in human health and disease.

Our gastrointestinal tract is incessantly inhabited by a highly complex, dynamic, and diverse microbial community comprising predominantly bacteria but also fungi, protozoa, protists, and viruses. Research over the past couple of decades has produced an avalanche of convincing evidence demonstrating how this gut microbial ecosystem plays a fundamental role not only in our intestinal, digestive, and nutritional functions but also in immunity, metabolism, cardiovascular system, liver health, and brain function. Accordingly, emerging evidence has linked perturbations in the microbiome (‘dysbiosis’) with predisposition to digestive and bowel diseases, metabolic and cardiovascular diseases, immune disorders, liver diseases, neurological and cognitive disorders, eating disorders, bone and muscle health issues, specific cancers, diet- and lifestyle-related chronic diseases, senescence and aging-related diseases. However, the precise underlying cellular and molecular mechanisms linking microbiome with host health and disease remain largely unclear and are only beginning to be unveiled and understood. Aimed to fill this gap in knowledge, the journal Gut Microbiome and Health endeavors to serve as a bridge between basic, translational, and clinical research, fostering multidisciplinary collaboration across medical and scientific disciplines to accelerate the integration of microbiome science into healthcare.

The journal aims to publish high-quality original research, brief reports, clinical trials, mechanistic reviews, systematic meta-analyses, and expert perspectives and commentaries that provide novel, mechanistic and meaningful insights into how gut microbes influence and regulate human metabolism, nutrition, immunity, cardiovascular physiology, disease pathogenesis and predisposition, aging, and how these characteristics of microbiome and its metabolic products could be harnessed to discover and develop novel diagnostics and therapeutic targets and avenues. The journal prioritizes cutting-edge preclinical and clinical studies with clear translational relevance and real-world scientific and medical applications. The journal welcomes submissions that explore the following areas and beyond:

• Translational and Interdisciplinary Microbiome Research: Connecting microbiome science with clinical practice across gastroenterology, hepatology, endocrinology, immunology, neurology, cardiovascular physiology, oncology, nephrology, pulmonology, rheumatology, dermatology, pathology, senescence biology, pediatrics, and geriatric medicine.

• Microbiome and Disease Mechanisms: Investigating how imbalances in the microbiome (dysbiosis) contribute to the risk or pathophysiology of disorders of the gut, metabolism, immunity, hormones, brain, liver, kidneys, cardiovascular system, bone, muscle, respiratory system, cellular senescence, and cancers.

• Microbiome-Based Diagnostics, Therapeutics, and Interventions: Studying probiotics, prebiotics, synbiotics, postbiotics, fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT), and other microbiome-derived products in context to clinical diagnostic, preventive, and therapeutic application for a broad range of diseases.

• Diet-Microbiome Interactions in Human Health and Disease: Developing next-generation microbial therapies and testing dietary and nutrition strategies to improve health and prevent/treat disease.

• Diagnostics, Biomarkers, and Methodological Advances in Microbiome: Applying high-throughput multi-omics tools (metagenomics, metabolomics, metaproteomics, transcriptomics, etc.) to uncover how microbial functions relate to human health and to discover microbiome-based biomarkers and targets for disease prognosis and treatment response.

• Host-Microbe and Drug-Microbe Interactions: Understanding how host genetics, epigenetics, immunity, environment, and exposome shape the microbiome. Investigating how microbes influence drug metabolism, drug efficacies, immune responses, and overall health, as well as how medications and lifestyle affect microbiome balance.

• Microbiome in Precision Medicine: Advancing personalized medicine through clinical trials and population studies that reveal how the microbiome affects human health and disease.

• Novel and Emerging Perspectives on Microbiome Science: Novel and timely reviews and perspectives on established and purported cellular and molecular mechanisms linking microbiome with host gut health, immunity, metabolism, cardiovascular system, gut-brain axis, senescence, and disease pathophysiologies.