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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2021 May 1.
Published in final edited form as: Trends Mol Med. 2020 Feb 17;26(5):496–507. doi: 10.1016/j.molmed.2020.01.009

Figure 1. FMT therapy restores microbial homeostasis and colonization resistance for long-term protection against C. difficile.

Figure 1.

Commensal dysbiosis confers host susceptibility to C. difficile infection (red bacterial cells) and subsequent toxin expression within the gut lumen (left panels). C. difficile toxins initiate disease through killing of colonic host-epithelial cells (yellow cells) and breakdown of the gut barrier[14,15]. Antibiotic treatment of C. difficile maintains host susceptibility to reinfection. Fecal Microbiota Transplantation (FMT) therapy re-establishes commensal diversity and providing long-term protection from relapse (right panel).