Syntrophic imbalance and the etiology of bacterial endoparasitism diseases

Abstract

This article outlines the proposed ‘syntrophic imbalance hypothesis’ for etiology of bacterial endoparasitism diseases. This hypothesis involves microbes (archaea and bacteria) that exist in human body biofilms in syntrophic associations, where bacteria ferment nutrients to produce short chain fatty acids (SCFAs) that are used by methanogenic archaeons to produce methane. Overgrowth of archaea on human tissues (e.g., in association with intestines, teeth or lungs) results in excessive removal of SCFAs from the biofilms and this triggers bacteria in the free-living biofilm state to convert to the endoparasitic state and become intracellular in host cells where they incite inflammation and disease. The proposed model provides the mechanism to explain dysbiosis etiology of several human diseases, including gingivitis, leaky gut syndrome, Crohn's disease, irritable bowel syndrome, among others.