Abstract
Commensal-Pathogen Interactions along the Human Nasal Passages.
Highlights
Bacterial species that commonly reside on surfaces of the human nasal passages (Fig 1) interact with the host along a continuum from beneficial to harmful, i.e., from mutualist to commensal to pathogen
A clear shift in the nostril microbiota occurs during puberty [29] and persists in the majority of healthy adults under age 65 years; it becomes dominated by Actinobacteria, in particular the genera Corynebacterium and Propionibacterium, and Firmicutes, in particular the genus Staphylococcus [7,11,16,19,21,24,25,29,31,32,33,34,35]
The observed inverse correlation between relative abundances of Corynebacterium spp. and S. pneumoniae in the noses of children under seven years old leads to the hypothesis that antagonism exists between these two groups of bacteria and that Corynebacterium spp. might be protective against pneumococcal colonization [23,26]
Summary
Bacterial species that commonly reside on surfaces of the human nasal passages (Fig 1) interact with the host along a continuum from beneficial to harmful, i.e., from mutualist to commensal to pathogen. The combination of cultivation and 16S rRNA gene-based approaches has revealed new insights into this possibility and has sparked renewed interest in determining the molecular mechanisms of commensal–pathobiont interactions in the nasal microbiota One goal of these efforts is to identify potentially beneficial bacteria (mutualists) that might either exclude pathobionts through colonization resistance or shift the behavior of colonizing pathobionts towards commensalism. These studies, along with evidence that nasal microbiota composition changes over time, including seasonal variation [8,9,10,11,12,13], support the hypothesis that nasal microbiota composition could be altered for therapeutic benefit [7,14] This hypothesis is bolstered by reports of negative correlations in colonization between key pathobionts (e.g., S. pneumoniae and S. aureus) and select benign commensals and of alterations in microbiota composition in disease states, e.g., middle ear infections (otitis media) [7,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26]. Among the common members of the nasal microbiota in both children and adults are known pathobionts
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