Microbial signatures in post-infectious irritable bowel syndrome - toward patient stratification for improved diagnostics and treatment

Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a multifactorial and heterogeneous disorder estimated to affect over 10% of the Western population. A subset of the patients reports the start of the disease after an episode of gastroenteritis. The alterations in the intestinal microbiota of the post-infectious IBS (PI-IBS) patients were recently investigated in a British cohort and shown to differentiate from the healthy controls and resemble that of diarrhea-predominant IBS (IBS-D) patients. The altered 27 genus-like groups created a microbial signature, which could be used to objectively stratify patients and healthy controls. In this addendum, we combine the microbiota data derived from the British cohort with that of a recently reported Swedish PI-IBS cohort. Remarkably, robust and reproducible microbiota signatures were observed in these PI-IBS patients. We discuss these results with attention on the emerging role of microbiota in the classification, development and treatment of PI-IBS.