Affiliations: [a] Institute of Biomedical Research, Shandong University of Technology, Zibo, Shandong, People’s Republic of China | [b] Shandong Provincial Research Center for Bioinformatic Engineering and Technique, Zibo Key Laboratory of New Drug Development of Neurodegenerative diseases, School of Life Sciences, Shandong University of Technology, Zibo, Shandong, People’s Republic of China
Correspondence:
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Correspondence to: Liang Shen and Hong-Fang Ji, Institute of Biomedical Research, Shandong University of Technology, Zibo, Shandong, People’s Republic of China. Tel.: +86 533 278 2220; E-mails: shen@sdut.edu.cn (L. Shen) and jhf@sdut.edu.cn (H.-F. Ji).
Abstract: Developing novel agents for unexplored targets to combat Alzheimer’s disease (AD) represents an urgent task due to its increasing prevalence worldwide. The present paper summarizes the latest studies emerged in the past few years investigating the associations between the “forgotten organ” gut microbiota and AD from the following two aspects: 1) the associations between gut microbiota and AD development by animal models and human studies; and 2) the effects of gut microbiota modulation-based intervention for AD. Then, we propose future perspectives in two promising research areas: 1) developing gut microbiota modulation-based intervention; and 2) developing gut microbiota-associated diagnostic biomarkers for AD. Knowledge gaps and potential barriers to overcome towards these two goals are also discussed.
Keywords: Alzheimer’s disease, gut microbiota, therapy
