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Call for papers - The impact of gut microbiota on human health

Guest Editors

Yongbo Kang, PhD, Shanxi Medical University, China
Anand Kumar, DVM, PhD, Los Alamos National Laboratory, USA
Chunlong Mu, PhD, AgResearch Ltd., New Zealand

Submission Status: Open   |   Submission Deadline: 16 September 2024

BMC Microbiology welcomes submissions to the Collection The impact of gut microbiota on human health. Human microbiome research is rapidly evolving and the gut microbiome is the most studied human microbial community. However, the mechanisms underlying the gut microbiota functions, the gut microbiota-host interactions, as well as how an imbalanced gut microbiome affects human health, remain poorly understood. This collection aims to bring together original research articles that cover emerging research on the role and impact of the gut microbiota on human diseases and biological dysfunctions.



New Content ItemThis Collection supports and amplifies research related to SDG 3: Good Health & Well-Being

Meet the Guest Editor

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Yongbo Kang, PhD, Shanxi Medical University, China

Dr Kang is an Associate Professor in the School of Basic Medical Sciences at Shanxi Medical University (China). His primary focus revolves around investigating the role and mechanisms of gut microbiota in metabolic and immune diseases. He is dedicated to advancing the field by exploring ways to prevent and treat metabolic and immune diseases through the targeted regulation of gut microbiota. As primary or corresponding author, Dr Kang has successfully published 32 papers in esteemed scientific journals. He is an active Editorial Board Member of BMC Microbiology.

Anand Kumar, DVM, PhD, Los Alamos National Laboratory, USA

Dr Kumar’s research focus is to discover and develop novel microbiome-based therapeutics (MBTs) to address both infectious and non-infectious diseases. With extensive experience in microbiomes, host-microbe interactions, probiotic development, and food safety, I have led initiatives to create a microbiome screening platform to discover MBTs for drug-resistant pathogens. Currently, Dr Kumar’s focuses on developing high-throughput host-pathogen interaction platforms to identify microbes that drive or inhibit cancer and viral infections, engineering probiotics to sense, compute, and respond to inflammation in the gut, and using mechanical waves to non-invasively detect biological agents and culture previously unculturable microbes from the microbiome. 

Chunlong Mu, PhD, AgResearch Ltd., New Zealand

Dr Mu is a Senior Scientist specializing in the human microbiome at AgResearch, one of the seven Crown Research Institutes in Aotearoa, New Zealand. He completed his postdoctoral training at the Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary, and the Alberta Children’s Hospital Research Institute. Dr Mu’s research focuses on the gut microbiome and its impact on human health, with particular emphasis on the role of the gut microbiome and ketogenic therapy in pediatric neurodevelopmental disorders, including infantile epilepsy and autism. His work spans the ketogenic diet, the microbiome-gut-brain axis, host-microbe interactions, probiotics, mitochondrial function, and animal microbiomes. He has authored five book chapters and over 70 publications. In November 2023, Dr Mu was selected as an At-large Delegate Representative for the Medical Nutrition Council of the American Society of Nutrition. He also serves as an editorial board member and reviewer for various journals, including BMC Microbiology.

About the Collection

The `human microbiome’ consists of complex microbial ecosystems, made of bacteria, archaea, viruses, fungi, and other eukaryotes, which inhabit the human body and directly affect human biology, homeostasis, and health. The human gastrointestinal tract harbors a dynamic population of microorganisms, the ‘gut microbiota’, and represents one the largest body interfaces between host, antigens, and environmental factors. The gut microbiota composition is indeed determined by different environmental factors, such as diet, pathogens, medication usage, pollutants, and host genetics.
 
Gut microbiota can be symbiotic, and in most cases beneficial, as well as pathogenic. In healthy people, both pathogenic and symbiotic microorganisms coexist, and such microbial balance is crucial to maintain immune and metabolic homeostasis and protect against pathogens. In contrast, an altered gut bacterial composition (a condition called ‘dysbiosis’), due for instance to infections, diet changes, or prolonged use of antibiotics or other medications, has been associated with various human diseases, such as infectious and inflammatory diseases, cardiovascular diseases, obesity, diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease, cancer, as well as neurological and neurodevelopmental disorders.
 
Although human microbiome research is rapidly evolving and the gut microbiome is the most studied human microbial community, the mechanisms underlying the gut microbiota functions, the gut microbiota-host interactions, as well as how an imbalanced gut microbiome affects human health, remain poorly understood. In support of the UN Sustainable Development Goals 3 (SDG 3), ‘Good health and well-being’, the Editors of BMC Microbiology announce the launch of the collection The impact of gut microbiota on human health. This collection aims to bring together original research articles that cover emerging research on the role and impact of gut microbiota on human diseases and biological dysfunctions. We invite researchers and experts in the field to submit research articles that explore, but are not limited to, the following topics:

  • Understanding the mechanisms underlying the gut microbiota functions, and the gut microbiota-host interactions
  • The impact of gut microbiota in promoting infectious, metabolic, immune, gastrointestinal, cardiovascular, ophthalmic, neurological diseases/disorders and cancer, understanding the underlying mechanisms
  • Development of diagnostic biomarkers for infectious, metabolic, immune, gastrointestinal, cardiovascular, ophthalmic, neurological diseases/disorders and cancer linked to gut microbiota imbalance
  • Effects of gut microbiota on growth, development, and immune system development in the context of aging
  • Gut microbiota dysbiosis, leaky gut, bacterial metabolites
  • Mechanistic understanding of how the metabolic environment affects the gut microbiome composition and functions, and how microbial metabolites affect the host
  • The gut-brain axis: understanding the impact of gut microbiome in neurological and neurodevelopmental disorders
  • Advances in gut microbiome-based therapeutics and interventions
  • Progress in treatment of human diseases and disorders by regulating the gut microbiota composition and diversity (e.g. prebiotics, probiotics, synbiotics, fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT), intestinal microbiota transplantation, dietary changes)
  • Understanding the relationship between gut microbiota composition and drug treatments
  • Diet impact on the gut microbiome biodiversity and functions
  • Progress in sampling methods for gut microbiota


Image credit: Dr_Microbe / stock.adobe.com

  1. This study aimed to discuss the distinctive features of the intestinal microbiota in neonates with hyperbilirubinemia and to comprehensively analyse the composition of the intestinal microbiota as well as the ...

    Authors: Junguo Li, Shenglin Ye, Xinyuan Huang, Guolong Yang, Yijin Wang, Jianghui Zeng and Chunhui Lai
    Citation: BMC Microbiology 2024 24:171
    Content type: Research Published on:

Submission Guidelines

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This Collection welcomes submission of original Research Articles. Should you wish to submit a different article type, please read our submission guidelines to confirm that type is accepted by the journal. Articles for this Collection should be submitted via our submission system, Snapp. During the submission process you will be asked whether you are submitting to a Collection, please select "The Impact of gut microbiota on human health" from the dropdown menu.

Articles will undergo the journal’s standard peer-review process and are subject to all of the journal’s standard policies. Articles will be added to the Collection as they are published.

The Editors have no competing interests with the submissions which they handle through the peer review process. The peer review of any submissions for which the Editors have competing interests is handled by another Editorial Board Member who has no competing interests.