Koch's postulates, microbial dysbiosis and inflammatory bowel disease

Abstract

Over the past 20 years, a growing amount of evidence supports the role of microbes and an imbalanced microbiota in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). While many reviews have been written on the microbiota in IBD, few have considered how they fulfil the Koch's postulates. In this review, we consider how the Koch's postulates might be modified so that they can be fulfilled for polymicrobial diseases, and we discuss the progress made to date in fulfilling them.

Keywords: Crohn disease; Dysbiosis; Inflammatory bowel disease; Koch's postulates; Ulcerative colitis.