AccScience Publishing / MI / Online First / DOI: 10.36922/MI026020005
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COMMENTARY

Gut microbiome and antimicrobial resistance: Friend or foe?

Kunal 1*
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1 Department of Life Sciences, School of Allied Health Sciences, Shree Guru Gobind Singh Tricentenary University, Gurugram, Haryana, India
Received: 5 January 2026 | Revised: 30 January 2026 | Accepted: 2 February 2026 | Published online: 13 February 2026
© 2026 by the Author(s). This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )
Abstract

The rise of antimicrobial resistance represents an escalating global health emergency, with the human gut microbiome playing a pivotal and dualistic role. While a healthy microbiota provides essential immune support and colonization resistance, antibiotic misuse triggers dysbiosis, turning the gut into a “resistome” that facilitates the spread of resistance genes. This article examines the “friend or foe” paradigm, arguing that maintaining microbial stability is key to mitigating resistance. By leveraging a “One Health” approach and innovative strategies such as personalized medicine, phage therapy, and microbiome-targeted therapies, the researchers and policymakers can harness the gut’s protective potential to combat multidrug-resistant pathogens and secure long-term therapeutic efficacy.

Keywords
Antibiotics
Antimicrobial resistance genes
Dysbiosis
Microbiome-friendly therapies
Funding
None.
Conflict of interest
The author declares no conflict of interest.
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Microbes & Immunity, Electronic ISSN: 3029-2883 Print ISSN: 3041-0886, Published by AccScience Publishing