Progress on Gut Microbiota-Regulated Bone Metabolism Imbalance and Implications for Chinese Medicine Intervention

Gut microbiota has the most category and highest density among all microbial habitats in human body. They can regulate human physiological functions and immune status through gut microbiota-host metabolism and then maintain our healthy. Recently, accumulating clinical researches and preclinical studies have reported that gut microbiota can regulate bone metabolism through various ways. For example, alterations in microbiota composition induced by a variety of pathological states and medicine, especially the antibiotics, may contribute to pathological bone loss. With the development of some new techniques such as high-throughput sequencing, gene knockout and germ-free mice, the recent studies implicated that gut microbiota can regulate bone metabolism balance through direct regulation, the metabolism of endogenous substances and the alterations of related hormones. This review describes recent data uncovering the relationship between gut microbiota and bone metabolism, with a focus on potential regulating pathways and Traditional Chinese Medicine intervention. The implications for treatment of bone metabolism disorders such as osteoporosis and drug target research are discussed as well.