Spatiotemporally resolved tools for analyzing gut microbiota

The gut microbiota is a hidden vital organ closely related to human health. Its spatial patterns and dynamics influence processes and functions including microbial colonization, community stability, host-microbe interactions, host metabolism, immune regulation, and neurodevelopment, but are not measurable via traditional tech-niques such as culturing, sequencing, and mass spectrometry, thus remaining largely unexplored. Here, we highlight emerging tech-niques such as spatially resolved sequencing and in vivo imaging, enabling the acquisition of spatial organizations and dynamic information of the gut microbiome, and discuss their contributions to our understanding of the gut microbiota including physiological activities, symbiotic functions, and spatial organization rearrange-ment under diverse physiological and pathological statuses, which provide new views for diet and clinical treatment via managing the gut microbiota.

Automated summary

The gut microbiota is an important hidden organ closely related to human health. Emerging techniques such as spatially resolved sequencing and in vivo imaging enable the acquisition of spatial organizations and dynamic information of the gut microbiome, providing new insights into physiological activities, symbiotic functions, and spatial organization rearrangement under different physiological and pathological conditions, which have implications for diet and clinical treatment through gut microbiota management.