Influence of the microbiota on the phytochemical constituents of natural products and vice versa - metabolomic approaches

Introduction The human microbiota plays a tremendous role in the interaction with natural products man is interacting with, as these influence the microbiota, but even more as these highly complex products are metabolized by the microbiota. This is of special relevance in case of natural products in therapeutic use as medicinal products.

Methods and results For a key group of such products, the flavonoids, a study was conducted in male C57BL/6 mice, showing for kaempferol and quercetin, that these are prodrugs, and their anxiolytic and antidepressant action depends on their microbial metabolism [1]. For a phytomedicine used in GI diseases, STW 5, in the pharmacological model of DSS induced gut inflammation in Wistar rats [2], as in human fecal suspensions [3], a significant influence on microbiota was shown by PCoA, with a high interindividual variability of metabolism of key constituents, e.g. liquiritigenin.

Summary and conclusions The action of natural products and their phytochemical constituents is to a large extent depending from the intestinal microbiota, and to a large part still unexplored, as recent reviews show [4], despite already a big number of studies is available, so that there is a need of further studies.

Publication History

Article published online:
08 September 2020

• References

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• 4 Thumann TA. et al. 2019; J Ethnopharmacol 2019; 245: 112153 . 10.1016/j.jep.2019.112153