Imbalance in gut microbial interactions as a marker of health and disease - PubMed
4 hours ago
- #dysbiosis
- #diagnostic tool
- #gut microbiome
- Imbalances in the gut microbiome (dysbioses) are linked to various diseases but are not well understood.
- Current biomarkers do not capture the ecological differences between healthy and diseased microbiomes.
- A new metric, the ecological network balance index (ENBI), measures the balance between positive and negative microbial interactions.
- ENBI was inspired by a model showing distinct stable states: a healthy state with negative interactions and a dysbiotic state with positive interactions.
- ENBI effectively differentiates between healthy and diseased states in both simulated and real-world data.
- ENBI correlates with disease progression, such as in colorectal cancer, highlighting its diagnostic potential.