Systems genetics approach reveals cross-talk between bile acids and intestinal microbes.

The emerging role of the gut microbiome in human pathophysiology has led to a paradigm shift in our view of complex traits, moving us from a "genetics-environment" interaction model to one that encompasses "genetics-microbes-environment." These shared QTLs highlighted genetic effects on the gut microbes and BA via pleiotropic (QTL -> microbe and QTL -> BA independently) or causal effects (QTL -> BA -> Microbe or QTL -> Microbe -> BA) (Fig 1). DIAGRAM: Fig 1: Systems quantitative trait locus (QTL) analysis on gut microbes and BA profiles. baQTL indicates a QTL associated to BA; miQTL indicates a QTL associated to gut microbes; sharedQTL indicates a QTL associated to both BA and gut microbes. [Extracted from the article]