Table 2.

Changes in the Intestinal Microbiota Associated With Alcohol and Probiotic or Synbiotic Intervention in Rodent Models and Humans

Reference	Tested Organism	Experimental Condition	Methodology	Major Taxa Altered in Presence of Alcohol a,b	Major Finding
Mutlu et al. 2009	Rat	10 week: Control isocaloric dextrose-fed rats/alcohol-fed rats	Length heterogeneity PCR (LH-PCR) Colonic rat mucosa tissue		Alcohol-fed rats have GIT microbial community composition significantly altered from control rats. Both probiotic (LGG) and prebiotic (oats) intervention prevented alcohol-induced dysbiosis, at week 10 in the colonic mucosa tissue of rats.
		1 week (at week 10): Alcohol + LGG-fed rats/alcohol + oat-fed rats/dextrose + oat-fed rats
Bull-Otterson et al. 2013	Mice	6 week: Alcohol-fed mice/control isocaloric maltose dextrin-fed mice	16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing (pyro-sequencing) Fecal mice samples	Alcohol induced: ↑Proteobacteria phylum: ↑Alcaligenes genus ↑Artinobacteria phylum: ↑Corynebacterium genus Firmicutes: ↑Aerococcus, ↑Listeria, ↑Acetivibrio, ↑Clostridiales, ↑Allobaculum, ↑Lactobacillus genus	Alcohol-fed mice have fecal GIT microbial community composition significantly altered from control mice. Probiotic (LGG) treatment prevented alcohol induced dysbiosis expansion. LGG reversed the expansion of the Proteobacteria and Actinobaceria phyla, which could play a pathogenic role in the development of alcoholic liver disease. Firmicutes expanded greatly in the alcohol + LGG–fed group.
		3 week (at weeks 6–8): Alcohol + LGG-fed mice		>↓Bacteroidetes phylum: ↓Bacteroides, ↓Parabacteroides, ↓Tannerella, ↓Hallella genus ↓Firmicutes phylum: ↓Lachnospiraceae, ↓Ruminococcaceae genus
				Alcohol + LGG: ↓Proteobacteria phylum: ↓Alcaligene genus ↓Artinobacteria phylum: ↓Corynebacterium genus
				↑Bacteroidetes phylum ↑↑↑Firmicutes phylum: ↑Lactobacillus, ↑Ruminococcaceae genus
Liu et al. 2004	Human	30-day treatment: Cirrhotic with MHE + synbiotic or prebiotic or placebo/control patients	Quantitative bacteriological culture Fecal samples	Cirrhotic with MHE: ↑ Escherichia coli species ↑ Staphylococcus genus	Cirrhotic patients with MHE were found to have significant fecal overgrowth of potentially pathogenic gram-negative (E. coli) and gram-positive (Staphylococcus) aerobic microbiota. After 30 days of synbiotic or prebiotic treatment, supplementation reduced E. coli, Staphylococcus, and Fusobacterium and increased Lactobacillus (Synbiotic) and Bifidobacterium (prebiotic) organisms in feces of cirrhotic patients with MHE.
				Cirrhotic with MHE + synbiotic ↓ Escherichia coli species ↓ Staphylococcus genus ↓ Fusobacterium genus
		Subgroup: Sober alcoholics 2 weeks & etiology is alcohol-cirrhosis		↑Lactobacillus genus
				Cirrhotic with MHE + prebiotic ↓ Escherichia coli species ↓ Fusobacterium genus
				↑Bifidobacterium genus

NOTES:

^aA comparison of bacterial Taxa either ↑, increased or ↓, decreased relative to the presence of alcohol.

^bTaxonomy was updated using the NCBI Taxonomy Browser.