Role of Microbiota in Regulating Host Lipid Metabolism and Disease Risk

Abstract

The gut microbiota is an environmental factor which affects host metabolism and correspondingly contributes to obesity and its cardiometabolic comorbidities. However, the mechanisms behind the regulation of host lipid metabolism by gut microbiota are poorly understood. The mechanistic in vivo studies over the past decade combining gnotobiotic animal models, metagenomics, and metabolomics have begun to decipher the role of the gut microbiota in the regulation of host physiology. However, since the animal studies cannot be easily extrapolated to humans, it still remains unclear if an altered microbiota associated with a specific disease in humans is a causative factor or merely a consequence of the disease state or both. Cheaper and more comprehensive sequencing tools for the analysis of gut microbiota, together with the recent advances in mass spectrometry-based analysis of molecular lipids, are expected to contribute to our understanding of the mechanisms linking gut microbiota, host lipid metabolism, and how they together contribute to metabolic comorbidities of obesity.