Alcohol-related liver disease can result in alcoholic hepatitis, a diseased and inflamed state of the liver. In mice, the gut microbiome produces toxins that contribute to liver damage in response to ethanol. Duan et al. identified a two-unit exotoxin cytolysin, excreted by Enterococcus faecalis as a cause of injury to the liver1. In patients with alcohol-related liver disease, Duan et al. also found increased numbers of E. faecalis in these patients' microbiomes1. Analyzing this further, Duan et al. used E. faecalis targeting bacteriophages in humanized mice with ethanol-induced liver disease1. They found that through this treatment, ethanol-induced liver disease was abolished in these test subjects, though more comprehensive testing must be performed to determine the true efficacy of this treatment.
(1) Duan, Y., Llorente, C., Lang, S. et al. Bacteriophage targeting of gut bacterium attenuates alcoholic liver disease. Nature (2019) doi:10.1038/s41586-019-1742-x
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