Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2022 Aug 18:13:943408.
doi: 10.3389/fendo.2022.943408. eCollection 2022.

The relationships between the gut microbiota and its metabolites with thyroid diseases

Wen Jiang  1 , Ganghua Lu  1 , Dingwei Gao  1 , Zhongwei Lv  1   2   3 , Dan Li  4
Affiliations
Review

The relationships between the gut microbiota and its metabolites with thyroid diseases

Wen Jiang et al. Front Endocrinol (Lausanne). .

Abstract

Emerging studies have provided a preliminary understanding of the thyroid-gut axis, indicating that intestinal microbiota and its metabolites may act directly or indirectly on the thyroid by influencing intestinal microelements uptake, iodothyronine conversion and storage, and immune regulation, providing new insights into the pathogenesis of thyroid disorders and clinical management strategies. However, the research on gut microbiota and thyroid has only presented the tip of the iceberg. More robust clinical data and basic experiments are still required to elucidate the specific relationships and mechanisms in the future. Here we will characterize the associations between the microbiota and thyroid diseases to evaluate their potential implications in the pathophysiology and open up scientific avenues for future precision studies of the thyroid-gut axis.

Keywords: Graves’ disease; Hashimoto’s thyroiditis; gut microbiota; hypothyroidism; thyroid; thyroid cancer.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Overview of potential associations between the gut microbiota and thyroid. TSH, thyroid-stimulating hormone; Tg, thyroglobulin; TSHR, thyroid-stimulating hormone receptor; TPO, thyroid peroxidase; NIS, sodium/iodide symporter; HDAC, histone deacetylase; TLR-4, toll-like receptor 4; LPS, lipopolysaccharide; NF-κB, nuclear factor kappa-B; PAX8, paired box 8; T3, triiodothyronine; T4, thyroxine; D1, type I iodothyronine deiodinase; D2, type II iodothyronine deiodinase; Treg: regulatory T cells; Se+, selenium; SCFA, short-chain fatty acid.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Eckburg PB, Bik EM, Bernstein CN, Purdom E, Dethlefsen L, Sargent M, et al. . Diversity of the human intestinal microbial flora. Science (2005) 308(5728):1635–8. doi: 10.1126/science.1110591 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Iannone LF, Preda A, Blottiere HM, Clarke G, Albani D, Belcastro V, et al. . Microbiota-gut brain axis involvement in neuropsychiatric disorders. Expert Rev Neurother (2019) 19(10):1037–50. doi: 10.1080/14737175.2019.1638763 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Gill SR, Pop M, Deboy RT, Eckburg PB, Turnbaugh PJ, Samuel BS, et al. . Metagenomic analysis of the human distal gut microbiome. Science (2006) 312(5778):1355–9. doi: 10.1126/science.1124234 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Qin J, Li R, Raes J, Arumugam M, Burgdorf KS, Manichanh C, et al. . A human gut microbial gene catalogue established by metagenomic sequencing. Nature (2010) 464(7285):59–65. doi: 10.1038/nature08821 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Dodd D, Spitzer MH, Van Treuren W, Merrill BD, Hryckowian AJ, Higginbottom SK, et al. . A gut bacterial pathway metabolizes aromatic amino acids into nine circulating metabolites. Nature (2017) 551(7682):648–52. doi: 10.1038/nature24661 - DOI - PMC - PubMed

Publication types