TABLE 1.

Notable examples of native or synthetic microbe consortia in therapy.

Composition	Target disease/physiology	Mechanism of action	Model system	Ref
Selectively purified firmicutes spores from healthy human donors	CDI	Exact mechanism undefined. Possibly involves competitive exclusion of C. difficile presumably through secondary BA production (given the presence of firmicutes phyla)	Approved for human use (trade name VOWST)	Sims et al. (2023)
Microbiota suspension from healthy human donors	CDI	Competitive exclusion of C. difficile through an undefined mechanism	Approved for human use (trade name Rebyota)	Adolfsen et al. (2021)
Defined consortium of 33 gut commensals	CDI	Competitive exclusion of C. difficile through an unknown mechanism	Human clinical trial (NCT01372943)	Petrof et al. (2013)
Defined consortium of 11 gut commensals	Tumor, infection (immunomodulation)	Bacterial colonization, and bacterial antigen-mediated induction of interferon-γ-secretory CD8 T cells in colonic epithelial cells	Mouse	Tanoue et al. (2019)
C. scindens and engineered Bacteroides species (B. thetaiotaomicron, B. fragilis, or B. ovatus)	Immunomodulation	Induction of CD4+ regulatory T cells Treg cells	Mouse	Campbell et al. (2020)
		Two step synthesis of 3β-hydroxydeoxycholic acid production from cholic acid via (i) cleavage of the 7α-hydroxyl group in cholic acid by Clostridium scindens, followed by (ii) epimerization of 3α-hydroxyl group in deoxycholic acid by engineered Bacteroides expressing hydroxysteroid dehydrogenases of Ruminococcus gnavus origin