Scope

Microbes are essential for all forms of life on the Earth, from plants to animals and humans. In particular they strongly impact on food production and nutrition. Fermentation is one of the oldest technologies used for millennia for the production of foods with desirable properties such as extended stability, good organoleptic properties, improved microbial stability and safety, and last but not least enhanced nutritional value. More recently, the crucial roles of microbes for human development and lifelong health were emphasized, opening huge opportunities for nutrition to prevent or treat chronic diseases linked to the activity of the gut microbiota. A main source of nutrients for our gut microbiota is the undigested fraction of food we ingest daily. In response, microbes perform many beneficial functions including digestion, production of essential nutrients (such as short chain fatty acids, amino-acids, vitamins, etc.), and cross taking via metabolites with the host. We can expected that in the future holistic nutrition will combine sustaining host requirements and feeding our gut microbes. 

Over the past years, considerable advances have been made in characterizing the complex composition and roles microbes in food and in the gut. Tremendous advances in life sciences supported by next generation sequencing (NGS) technologies that fuels (meta-)genomics, as well as high-resolution metabolomics are revolutionizing our understanding of microbes and ecosystems associated with nutrition and health. Microbe-microbe interactions are complex but thought to be crucial for obtaining the desired functionality of the microbial collectivity and product characteristics.  

Nutrition and Microbes aims to publish significant nutritionally-relevant food, clinical and basic research findings based on microbes and functions. Specifically, we welcome papers on the following topics: 

- Impact of microbes and fermentation for the nutritional quality of food 

- Development and application of functional microbes and products thereof for improvement of nutritional quality of foods 

- Nutritional strategies, including but not limited to probiotics and prebiotics, targeting the composition and activity of the gut microbiota for promoting human health 

- Identification of metabolic activities of microbes contributing to host nutrition and health 

- Mechanistic understanding of the role of food and gut microbes and ecosystems on sustaining host nutrition 

- Nutrient-microbe interactions for the desired functionality of the microbial collectivity in food and the gut 

- Bioactivation and degradation of nutritional components and food xenobiotics  

Studies on farm animals other than animal models for human nutrition as well as studies extending to human disease without clear microbe and nutrition aspects should be submitted to other relevant Frontiers journals or more suitable Frontiers in Nutrition specialty sections.

Submission

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