Alternation of Microbiota in Autoimmune Disease

Abstract

Immune system distinguishes self-antigens from non-self-antigen to protect the host from foreign threats. If losing this ability, the immune system can attack the host and lead to autoimmune diseases, which has high mortality although low prevalence. Microbiota closely interact with the immune system and functions to regulate the immune responses, thus are very likely to play a role in the autoimmune diseases. This paper discusses six autoimmune diseases, all of which are detected alternation of microbiota for the patients when comparing to that of the healthy controls. An imbalance between relative abundance of Bacteroidetes and Firmicutes can be a common characteristic of the patients. Probiotic treatments such as fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) and probiotic supplements turn out to have an effect relieving the symptoms of autoimmune diseases. This suggests a great potential of probiotic treatment for the future development of better therapy for autoimmune diseases.