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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2017 Apr 1.
Published in final edited form as: Nat Rev Microbiol. 2016 Mar 14;14(5):273–287. doi: 10.1038/nrmicro.2016.17

Figure 5. Translational implications of microbiome research in pharmacology.

Figure 5

A. Metagenomic and metabolomic approaches enable the dissection of microbial communities at multiple scales from complex communities to individual metabolites. This information can be used to find biomarkers, to develop co-therapies that target the microbiota or to identify novel drugs. B. Inhibiting microbial enzymes in the gut. Such examples include using small molecules to inhibit bacterial β-glucuronidase activity (left panel) and the dietary inhibition of cardiac drug inactivation by Eggerthella lenta (right panel). C. Microbiome-based diagnostics. Examples include measuring: the abundance of bacterial species that are associated with tacrolimus efficacy (left panel); the presence or absence of genes that are associated with the bioavailability of digoxin (middle panel); and the levels of the microbial metabolite p-cresol, which is associated with acetaminophen metabolism (right panel).