Excess fermentation and lactic acidosis as detrimental functions of the gut microbes in treatment-naive TB patients.

Introduction: The link between gut microbiota and host immunity motivated numerous studies of the gut microbiome in tuberculosis (TB) patients. However, these studies did not explore the metabolic capacity of the gut community, which is a key axis of impact on the host's immunity.

Methods: We used deep sequencing of fecal samples from 23 treatment-naive TB patients and 48 healthy donors to reconstruct the gut microbiome's metabolic capacity and strain/species-level content.