The Drosophila model for microbiome research
Abstract
The gut microbiome is increasingly recognized to play an important role in shaping the health and fitness of animals, including humans. Drosophila is emerging as a valuable model for microbiome research, combining genetic and genomic resources with simple protocols to manipulate the microbiome, such that microbiologically sterile flies and flies bearing a standardized microbiota can readily be produced in large numbers. Studying Drosophila has the potential to increase our understanding of how the microbiome influences host traits, and allows opportunities for hypothesis testing of microbial impacts on human health. Drosophila is being used to investigate aspects of host-microbe interactions, including the metabolism, the immune system and behavior. Drosophila offers a valuable alternative to rodent and other mammalian models of microbiome research for fundamental discovery of microbiome function, enabling improved research cost effectiveness and benefits for animal welfare. Angela Douglas reviews the use of Drosophila melanogaster as a model organism in microbiome studies.
How strong is the evidence?
Evidence Hub reads this as a review, done in animal, not in people. Its evidence level is 5 of 5 (Very low · case / narrative / animal / in vitro / in silico). Case reports, narrative reviews, and animal, cell or computer-model studies give the weakest evidence for human health.
Read the paper
Related studies
- The impact of the COVID-19 epidemic on mental health of undergraduate students in New Jersey, cross-sectional study
- Viral suppression and HIV transmission in serodiscordant male couples: an international, prospective, observational, cohort study
- Lifetime risk of atrial fibrillation according to optimal, borderline, or elevated levels of risk factors: cohort study based on longitudinal data from the Framingham Heart Study
- Nusinersen in adults with 5q spinal muscular atrophy: a non-interventional, multicentre, observational cohort study
- Population-based rates, timing, and causes of maternal deaths, stillbirths, and neonatal deaths in south Asia and sub-Saharan Africa: a multi-country prospective cohort study
- 30-day mortality in patients hospitalized with COVID-19 during the first wave of the Italian epidemic: A prospective cohort study
Go deeper in Evidence Hub
Evidence Hub adds a study data sheet (design, sample size, evidence level, key numbers), an AI summary and a chat grounded in the paper's text.