4.8 Review

The lung microbiome: progress and promise

Journal

JOURNAL OF CLINICAL INVESTIGATION
Volume 131, Issue 15, Pages -

Publisher

AMER SOC CLINICAL INVESTIGATION INC
DOI: 10.1172/JCI150473

Keywords

-

Funding

  1. NIH [R33-HL137063, KL2-TR001879]
  2. Cystic Fibrosis Foundation

Ask authors/readers for more resources

The healthy lung is not completely sterile, with bacteria entering from the upper respiratory tract through microaspiration. The nature and dynamics of the lung microbiome differ from other ecological niches with self-sustaining microbial communities, and dysbiosis has been demonstrated in many pulmonary diseases.
The healthy lung was long thought of as sterile, but recent advances using molecular sequencing approaches have detected bacteria at low levels. Healthy lung bacteria largely reflect communities present in the upper respiratory tract that enter the lung via microaspiration, which is balanced by mechanical and immune clearance and likely involves limited local replication. The nature and dynamics of the lung microbiome, therefore, differ from those of ecological niches with robust self-sustaining microbial communities. Aberrant populations (dysbiosis) have been demonstrated in many pulmonary diseases not traditionally considered microbial in origin, and potential pathways of microbe-host crosstalk are emerging. The question now is whether and how dysbiotic microbiota contribute to initiation or perpetuation of injury. The fungal microbiome and virome are less well studied. This Review highlights features of the lung microbiome, unique considerations in studying it, examples of dysbiosis in selected disease, emerging concepts in lung microbiome-host interactions, and critical areas for investigation.

Authors

I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.

Reviews

Primary Rating

4.8
Not enough ratings

Secondary Ratings

Novelty
-
Significance
-
Scientific rigor
-
Rate this paper

Recommended

No Data Available
No Data Available