Cadmium toxicity to the human gut microbiome varies depending on composition

Cadmium (Cd) is a toxic heavy metal with detrimental impacts on the gut microbiota. The objective of this study was to determine the proportion of human gut microbiomes exhibiting Cd sensitivity or resilience and identify conserved compositional and functional changes between resilient and sensitive communities. We performed 24-hour in vitro cultures from 21 healthy adult donors in medium containing and not containing cadmium.