PharmacoMicrobiomics or how bugs modulate drugs: an educational initiative to explore the effects of human microbiome on drugs

Abstract

Background Pharmacogenomics investigates how variations within the human genome affect the action and disposition of drugs as well as drug tolerance [1]. Yet, variations within the human genome do not fully account for the tremendous phenotypic variations observed between individuals. Human-associated microbes, which exceed the human cells in number, significantly contribute to the effective human gene pool, and their combined genomes (known as the human microbiome) have not gained attention until recently. The Human Microbiome Project was launched in 2007 to catalogue the tremendous diversity of cultured and uncultured human-associated microbial communities residing in different human tissues, and to study the effect of microbial genes and genomes on human health and disease [2,3]. However, the effect of these microbes on drugs remains largely unexplored. Since microbes have complex metabolism, including an extraordinary ability to metabolize xenobiotics [4-6], they are expected to play a pivotal role in modulating the action, disposition, and toxicity of drugs with which they interact in different sub-ecosystems within the human body [7].