Cross-body site microbial interactions influence the human plasma metabolome

The human microbiome profoundly influences the host plasma metabolome and health, but most studies have focused on the gut microbiome in isolation. A comprehensive assessment of how microbiomes from multiple body sites jointly shape host metabolism has been lacking.

Using data from three independent human cohorts (n = 435), we systematically analyzed the selective and joint influences of microbiomes from multiple body sites on the human plasma metabolome (814 annotated metabolites). Microbiomes from all body sites contributed to plasma metabolome variation, collectively explaining 30.13% of the inter-individual variation. The gut microbiome showed the largest contribution (18.44%), followed by oral (14.70%), skin (11.5%), and nasal (5.88%) microbiomes. Microbial composition did not necessarily predict metabolic function for example, despite distinct compositions, oral and gut microbiomes exhibited similar associations with circulating metabolites. Machine learning and mediation analyses revealed widespread cooperative and synergistic microbial interactions across body sites, particularly along the oral-gut axis. Over half of the metabolites were jointly influenced by multiple body-site microbiomes. This axis showed cross-site microbial crosstalk and sequential metabolic processing, regulating metabolites such as indole derivatives and carboxylic acids. The oral-gut microbiome-metabolome axis was further amplified in insulin resistance (IR), linking enhanced microbial cooperation to metabolic dysregulation.

Our findings reveal the systemic and interactive nature of microbiome-metabolome relationships and highlight the need to integrate spatially distributed microbial ecosystems to fully understand host metabolic regulation and disease mechanisms. Video Abstract.