Coronavirus infection and gut microbiota

At present time, a number of questions regarding the pathophysiological characteristics and therapeutic approa¬ches to the treatment of the new coronavirus infection COVID-19 remain unresolved. In some cases, patients with COVID-19 may experience symptoms of gastrointestinal tract disorder. According to the literature, the new SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus can replicate in the gastrointestinal tract and may affect the gut microbiota. The article aims to review studies about the possible relationship between the gut microbiota condition and the course of COVID-19 infection, as well as to consider the gut microbiota as a potential therapeutic target and probiotic drugs as possible therapeutic agents in the treatment of viral infections, including COVID-19 infection. It is known that gut microbiota condition is one of the factors determining the susceptibility and features of the body’s response to various infectious agents, possibly including the COVID-19 infection. Currently published studies demonstrate a possible relationship between the gut microbiota condition and the course of COVID-19 infection, however, to confirm this hypothesis, additional studies are required, which will allow to make more unambiguous conclusions with subsequent development of new approaches to the prevention and treatment of infection. Potentially a lot of hope in this direction is inspired by the results of probiotics studies, which showed that their use may reduce the frequency and severity of viral infections of the upper respiratory tract. However, currently, there is insufficient data to extrapolate the results of these studies to COVID-19 patients.