The human gut microbiome predicts susceptibility to choline deficiency induced fatty liver

Identifying how factors, such as diet and nutrition, affect the human gut microbiome is key to understanding the role of symbiont microbes in human health and disease. To investigate the gut microbial response to dietary change, we used 454 pyrosequencing to characterize the impact of diet standardization, choline deficiency and recovery from choline deprivation in human subjects (n=15). Despite exposure to a common diet, the subjects in our study maintained distinct microbial communities, even though those communities changed within each subject as diets changed. Our findings identify specific bacterial biomarkers for the development of choline deficiency induced fatty liver, adding to the accumulating evidence of the influence of gut microbes in the variety of related metabolic disorders that are epidemic in Western society.