The prevalence of autoimmune diseases (ADs) worldwide has rapidly increased over the past few decades. Thus, in addition to the classical risk factors for ADs, such as genetic polymorphisms, infections and smoking, environmental triggers have been considered. Recent sequencing-based approaches have revealed that patients with extra-intestinal ADs, such as multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, type 1 diabetes and systemic lupus erythematosus, have distinct gut microbiota compositions compared to healthy controls. Faecal microbiota transplantation or inoculation with specific microbes in animal models of ADs support the hypothesis that alterations of gut microbiota influence autoimmune responses and disease outcome. Here, we describe the compositional and functional changes in the gut microbiota in patients with extra-intestinal AD and discuss how the gut microbiota affects immunity. Moreover, we examine how the gut microbiota might be modulated in patients with ADs as a potential preventive or therapeutic approach.

在过去的几十年中，全球范围内自身免疫性疾病 (AD) 的患病率迅速增加。因此，除了遗传多态性、感染和吸烟等 AD 的经典风险因素外，还考虑了环境诱因。最近基于测序的方法表明，与健康对照相比，患有肠外 AD 的患者，例如多发性硬化症、类风湿性关节炎、1 型糖尿病和系统性红斑狼疮，具有不同的肠道微生物群组成。粪便微生物群移植或在 AD 动物模型中接种特定微生物支持肠道微生物群的改变影响自身免疫反应和疾病结果的假设。这里，我们描述了肠外 AD 患者肠道微生物群的组成和功能变化，并讨论了肠道微生物群如何影响免疫力。此外，我们研究了如何将 AD 患者的肠道微生物群作为一种潜在的预防或治疗方法进行调节。