ADAR-mediated RNA editing in CNS disorders: from pathogenic mechanisms to therapeutic opportunities.

Microbiomes play an essential role in the health of humans, plants, animals, and ecosystems. The concept of microbiome stewardship can be applied across species, ecosystems, and policy domains to support health on local and global scales. This work supports progress predominantly toward the UN Sustainable Development Goal of One Health. It is also relevant to goals 3 (Good Health and Well-Being), 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation), 9 (Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure), 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities), 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production), 13 (Climate Action), 14 (Life Below Water), 15 (Life on Land), and 17 (Partnerships for the Goals). In recent years, there has been increasing attention to concepts such as environmental health (Finn and O’Fallon , World Health Organization ), One Health (World Health Organization , Ginnan et al. ), and planetary health (Horton et al. , Whitmee et al. , Wabnitz et al. ). These approaches share a core idea: that the health of organisms is intricately connected with the health of other organisms and to the ecosystems in which they exist. A unifying mechanistic element of these interconnected systems are microbiomes: communities of microorganisms that live in, on, and around us. Microbial communities contribute essential ecological, metabolic, immune, and yet-unidentified functions to their hosts and larger ecosystems (Gilbert and Neufeld ). However, evidence is accumulating that many microbial ecosystems are changing as a result of human activities (Ishaq et al. , Rocca et al. , Groussin et al. , Peixoto et al. ), and these changes are associated with adverse health effects for hosts and larger ecosystems (Athithan et al. ). In the case of humans, microbiome changes have been implicated in many conditions such as asthma (Kozik and Huang , Barcik et al. ), lung infections (Yu et al. ), cancer (Hou et al. ), inflammatory bowel disease (Walters et al. , Li et al. , Holcomb et al. ), obesity (Borrego-Ruiz and Borrego ), and neuroinflammatory disorders (Bostick et al. ). Beyond human health, human activities have been associated with, for example, alterations to soil (de Vries et al. , Tsiafouli et al. ), plant (Ishaq , Trivedi et al. , Shahid et al.  ), and insect (Graber and Moreau ) microbiomes in ways that reduce chemical/nutrient cycling and availability, growth, and resilience to environmental stressors (Trivedi et al. , Boyle et al. ). Despite growing evidence for human-induced microbiome impacts, relatively little is being done to address these problems. Several approaches to safeguarding microbial life—discussed in more detail in the Discussion section—have gained attention in recent literature: a biobanking model (Dominguez Bello et al. ), a conservation model (Junker and Farwig , Gilbert et al. ), and a rights-based model (Rizk et al. ). In addition, approaches such as One Health have brought awareness to the connectedness of the health of different organisms and have noted the important centralized role of microbes (Daisley et al. , Ginnan et al. ). In parallel, some microbiome scientists have been strong advocates for recognizing the role of microbiomes in health and have been successful in promoting awareness of how individuals can improve the health of their individual microbiomes (Blaser , Gilbert et al. ). While individual choices matter, systemic drivers—pollution, deforestation, and industrial food systems—can cause widespread microbiome alterations with harmful health consequences. These factors influencing microbiomes operate beyond individual choice or control, at the collective level (Ishaq et al. , Rocca et al. , Elton , Groussin et al. ). Yet the need to protect microbial life is not recognized or reflected in policy frameworks, regulations, or best practice guidelines across domains. Moreover, disruption and damage to microbiomes is experienced differently by different groups of people, which raises questions of equity and environmental justice (Choudoir and Eggleston ).