Overview and systematic review of studies of microbiome in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder
Section snippets
Why microbiome?
The microbiome is a dynamic ecological community of microorganisms and their genes, including mainly bacteria, but also archaea, microbial eukaryotes, fungi, and viruses that inhabit the human body. For decades, the importance of the human microbiome remained elusive, due to technical challenges in studying unculturable microorganisms (Pace, 1997, Qin et al., 2010, Sogin et al., 1972, Woese and Fox, 1977). Only with the advent of high-throughput sequencing techniques has it become apparent that
Preclinical studies of the microbiome in neuropsychiatric disorders
In this ever-expanding field, researchers are now investigating how the intestinal microbiota influence distal sites, particularly the brain. In psychiatric disorders, the gut microbiome has been of particular interest because it plays a significant role in brain function and behavior (Diaz Heijtz et al., 2011), which has led to coining of the term “gut-brain axis.” The mechanisms by which peripheral intestinal microorganisms are linked to emotional and cognitive functions of the brain are not
A systematic review of clinical studies of the microbiome in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder
We conducted a systematic review of studies of the microbiome in patients with schizophrenia and BD. We searched PubMed, PsycINFO, and Embase for articles published before May 3, 2017 using the following search string: microbiome AND (schizophrenia OR psychosis OR bipolar OR severe mental illness). We considered studies that utilized high-throughput sequencing methods to characterize microorganisms in individuals clinically diagnosed with schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, BD, or related
Conclusions and perspectives
Schizophrenia and BD are heterogeneous diseases with multiple plausible pathophysiological contributors. Abundant evidence points to the immune system as an important factor in the pathogenesis and developmental trajectories of these disorders (Anderson et al., 2013, Benros et al., 2014, Berk et al., 2011, Watanabe et al., 2010). The gut is the largest immune system in the body. Microbiota colonization of the gut early in life is crucial for the optimal development and function of the immune
Conflict of interest
The authors have declared that there are no conflicts of interest in relation to the subject of this study.
Funding
This work was supported by National Institute of Mental Health (grant numbers 2R01 MH094151-06 and 5T32 MH019934-24 to DVJ), the Desert-Pacific Mental Illness Research, Education, and Clinical Center (TTN, LTE), the Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Academic Affiliations (TTN), UC San Diego Stein Institute for Research on Aging, and UC San Diego Center for Microbiome Innovation.
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