Traditional Chinese Medicine(TCM)has been exten-sively used to ameliorate diseases in Asia for over thousands of years.However,owing to a lack of formal scientific validation,the absence of information regard-ing the mechanisms underlying TCMs restricts their application.After oral administration,TCM herbal ingredients frequently are not directly absorbed by the host,but rather enter the intestine to be transformed by gut microbiota.The gut microbiota is a microbial com-munity living in animal intestines,and functions to maintain host homeostasis and health.Increasing evi-dences indicate that TCM herbs closely affect gut microbiota composition,which is associated with the conversion of herbal components into active metabo-lites.These may significantly affect the therapeutic activity of TCMs.Microbiota analyses,in conjunction with modern multiomics platforms,can together identify novel functional metabolites and form the basis of future TCM research.