Abstract
Gut microbial communities participate in key aspects of host biology, including development, nutrient absorption, immunity and disease. During host ageing, intestinal microbes undergo dramatic changes in composition and function and can shift from commensal to pathogenic. However, whether they play a causal role in host ageing and life span has remained an open question for a long time. Recent work in model organisms has revealed for the first time that gut microbes can modulate ageing, opening new questions and opportunities to uncover novel ageing-modulating mechanisms and to design anti-ageing interventions by targeting the gut microbiota.
Highlights
In hundreds of millions of years of co-evolution, commensal microbial communities and their hosts have adapted to one another, becoming strictly inter-dependent
The complex interaction between host and its associated microbial communities—termed “microbiota”—undergoes important changes, which can result in dramatic phenotypic consequences for the host, including dysbiosis, infections and overall functional decline
Rather than being mutually exclusive, a combination of immunosenescence and microbiotaintrinsic population and evolutionary dynamics could lead to irreversible host dysfunctions, resulting in rapid deterioration of health and increased risk for age-related pathologies and death (Figure 1)
Summary
F1000 Faculty Reviews are written by members of the prestigious F1000 Faculty. They are commissioned and are peer reviewed before publication to ensure that the final, published version is comprehensive and accessible. The reviewers who approved the final version are listed with their names and affiliations. Any comments on the article can be found at the end of the article
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