Microbial biofilms: Human mucosa and intestinal microbiota

Abstract Microbiota clusters are present in different body parts, but the huge diversity found in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract are termed “gut microbiota,” and play vital a role in different metabolisms. Gut microbiota populations vary in the different regions of the human GI tract, from the oral cavity all the way through to the large intestine. A number of beneficial microbiota species is related to good health, but any alteration in these beneficial gut microbiota species has been associated with various health complications including obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, inflammatory bowel disease, and certain types of cancers. Meta-genomic, and other high throughput gene sequencing techniques have provided new insight in the structure, function, and identification of gut microbiota. Some of the relatively abundant population phyla are Bacteroidetes, Firmicutes, Actinobacteria, Proteobacteria, and Verrucomicrobia. These beneficial gut microbiota exists in close proximity and coordinate with the mucus layer of hosts gut either in free-floating planktonic form or adherent to the outer layer of mucosa, called a biofilm. However, most of the microbiota that grows within the gut and overlies on the mucus layer of gut epithelium acts as the first line of defense against harmful microbes and also utilize mucus to their benefit to enhance their growth and develop biofilms in the GI tract. The biofilms and the microbes that are the most numerous in the human body are found in luminal and mucosal locations and have a great impact on human health and disease. In this chapter, we will describe the current research findings that are starting to uncover the significance of gut microbiota biofilm in health and disease.