Overgrowth of the indigenous gut microbiome and irritable bowel syndrome

Culture-independent molecular techniques have demonstrated that the majority of the gut microbiota is uncultivable. Application of these molecular techniques to more accurately identify the indigenous gut microbiome has moved with great pace over recent years, leading to a substantial increase in understanding of gut microbial communities in both health and a number of disorders, including irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). Use of culture-independent molecular techniques already employed to characterise faecal and, to a lesser extent, colonic mucosal microbial populations in IBS, without reliance on insensitive, traditional microbiological culture techniques, has the potential to more accurately determine microbial composition in the small intestine of patients with this disorder, at least that occurring proximally and within reach of sampling. Current data concerning culture-based and culture-independent analyses of the small intestinal microbiome in IBS are considered here.