Drug Metabolism and Microbiome

Drug Metabolism and Microbiome

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By Maryam Azizi, M.Sc.Reviewed by Dr. Jennifer Logan, MD, MPH

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• What is a microbiome?
• Importance of the microbiota
• The effects of microbiota on drug metabolism
• The future of microbiota

What is a microbiome?

The microbiome consists of about 100 trillion microbes (microbiota) and their genomes that inhabit the human body. These include bacteriophages (viruses infecting bacteria), fungi, bacteria, protozoa (single-cell eukaryote), and viruses in the human body.

These populations are very important for maintaining health as well as for metabolizing drugs and foreign substances (xenobiotics). The latter is now important in the development of new drugs.