Evolution of bacteria in the human gut in response to changing environments: An invisible player in the game of health

Several factors in Western society, including widespread use of antibiotics, chronic inflammation, and loss of complex eukaryotic symbionts such as helminths, have a dramatic impact on the ecosystem of the gut, affecting the microbiota hosted there. In addition, reductions in dietary fiber are profoundly impactful on the microbiota, causing extensive destruction of the niche space that supports the normally diverse microbial community in the gut. Abundant evidence now supports the view that, following dramatic alterations in the gut ecosystem, microorganisms undergo rapid change via Darwinian evolution. Such evolutionary change creates functionally distinct bacteria that may potentially have properties of pathogens but yet are difficult to distinguish from their benign predecessors. (C) 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of Research Network of Computational and Structural Biotechnology.

Automated summary

Several factors in Western society, such as antibiotic use, chronic inflammation, and decreased dietary fiber, impact the gut microbiota. These changes lead to rapid Darwinian evolution in microorganisms, resulting in bacteria with potentially pathogenic properties.