Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2021. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Methodol. Jul 20, 2021; 11(4): 130-143
Published online Jul 20, 2021. doi: 10.5662/wjm.v11.i4.130
Looking into key bacterial proteins involved in gut dysbiosis
Xin-Yu Zeng, Ming Li
Xin-Yu Zeng, Ming Li, Department of Gastroenterology, Qilu Hospital of Shandong University, Jinan 250012, Shandong Province, China
Xin-Yu Zeng, Ming Li, Laboratory of Translational Gastroenterology, Qilu Hospital of Shandong University, Jinan 250012, Shandong Province, China
Ming Li, Robot Engineering Laboratory for Precise Diagnosis and Therapy of GI Tumors, Qilu Hospital of Shandong University, Jinan 250012, Shandong Province, China
Author contributions: Li M conceived and initiated this review; Zeng XY did literature search, filter, and organization; Li M and Zeng XY wrote the paper and approved the final version of this manuscript.
Supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China, No. 81700457.
Conflict-of-interest statement: There is no conflict of interest associated with any of authors who contributed their efforts in this manuscript.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Ming Li, PhD, Attending Doctor, Department of Gastroenterology, Qilu Hospital of Shandong University, No. 107 Wenhua West Road, Jinan 250012, Shandong Province, China. limingecho@126.com
Received: January 29, 2021
Peer-review started: January 29, 2021
First decision: May 6, 2021
Revised: May 11, 2021
Accepted: June 16, 2021
Article in press: June 16, 2021
Published online: July 20, 2021
Processing time: 170 Days and 23.5 Hours
Abstract

The gastrointestinal microbiota plays a pivotal role in health and has been linked to many diseases. With the rapid accumulation of pyrosequencing data of the bacterial composition, the causal-effect relationship between specific dysbiosis features and diseases is now being explored. The aim of this review is to describe the key functional bacterial proteins and antigens in the context of dysbiosis related-diseases. We subjectively classify the key functional proteins into two categories: Primary key proteins and secondary key proteins. The primary key proteins mainly act by themselves and include biofilm inhibitors, toxin degraders, oncogene degraders, adipose metabolism modulators, anti-inflammatory peptides, bacteriocins, host cell regulators, adhesion and invasion molecules, and intestinal barrier regulators. The secondary key proteins mainly act by eliciting host immune responses and include flagellin, outer membrane proteins, and other autoantibody-related antigens. Knowledge of key bacterial proteins is limited compared to the rich microbiome data. Understanding and focusing on these key proteins will pave the way for future mechanistic level cause-effect studies of gut dysbiosis and diseases.

Keywords: Gut microbiota; Pyrosequencing; Bacteria; Protein; Immune; Dysbiosis

Core Tip: Revealing the causal-effect relationship between specific dysbiosis features and diseases requires understanding the roles of key bacterial proteins that are involved in dysbiosis. Some bacterial proteins may affect the microbiome by their inherent functions. Others shape the microbiome mainly by eliciting host immune responses. These key proteins warrant attention in future bioinformatic analyses and mechanistic studies.