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Updated: Sep 21, 2026

Quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction-based Analyses of Murine Intestinal Microbiota After Oral Antibiotic Treatment
Published on: November 17, 2018
Quantitative analysis of disease-related metabolic dysregulation of human microbiota
Maria Rita Fumagalli1,2, Stella Maria Saro3, Matteo Tajana3
1Center for Complexity and Biosystems, Department of Environmental Science and Policy, University of Milan, via Celoria 26, 20133 Milano, Italy.
Abstract:
The metabolic activity of all the micro-organism composing the human microbiome interacts with the host metabolism contributing to human health and disease in a way that is not fully understood. Here, we introduce STELLA, a computational method to derive the spectrum of metabolites associated with the microbiome of an individual. STELLA integrates known information on metabolic pathways associated with each bacterial species and extracts from these the list of metabolic products of each singular reaction by means of automatic text analysis. By comparing the result obtained on a single subject with the metabolic profile data of a control set of healthy subjects, we are able to identify individual metabolic alterations. To illustrate the method, we present applications to autism spectrum disorder and multiple sclerosis.
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