Industrial and agricultural chemicals exhibit antimicrobial activity against human gut bacteria in vitro.

ABSTRACT: Industrial and agricultural chemicals such as pesticides are often considered to have restricted biological activity. Yet, there are concerns regarding their broader toxicity range and impact on human gut microbiota. Here we report a systematic in vitro screening to assess the impact of 1,076 pollutants, spanning diverse chemistries and indicated applications, on 22 prevalent gut bacteria. Our investigation uncovered 588 inhibitory interactions involving 168 chemicals, the majority of which were not previously reported to have antibacterial properties. Fungicides and industrial chemicals showed the largest impact, with around 30% exhibiting anti-gut-bacterial properties. We demonstrate that the scale of our dataset enables a machine learning approach for predicting the antibacterial activi

SUBMITTER: Roux I 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12669032 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature