Abstract
Not long ago, self-reactive immune activity was considered as pathological trait. A paradigm shift has now led to the recognition of autoimmune processes as part of natural maintenance of molecular homeostasis. The immune system is assigned further roles beneath the defense against pathogenic organisms. Regarding the humoral immune system, the investigation of natural autoantibodies that are frequently found in healthy individuals has led to further hypotheses involving natural autoimmunity in other processes as the clearing of cellular debris or decrease in inflammatory processes. However, their role and origin have not been entirely clarified, but accumulating evidence links their formation to immune reactions against the gut microbiome. Antibodies targeting highly conserved proteins of the commensal microflora are suggested to show self-reactive properties, following the paradigm of the molecular mimicry. Here, we discuss recent findings, which demonstrate potential links of the commensal microflora to the immunological homeostasis and highlight the possible implications for various diseases. Furthermore, specific components of the immune system, especially antibodies, have become a focus of attention for the medical management of various diseases and provide attractive treatment options in the future. Nevertheless, the development and optimization of such macromolecules still represents a very time-consuming task, shifting the need to more medical agents with simple structural properties and low manufacturing costs. Synthesizing only the biologically active sites of antibodies has become of great interest for the pharmaceutical industry and offers a wide range of therapeutic application areas as it will be discussed in the present review article.
Highlights
The human gut microbiome (GM) consists of a plethora of different taxa [1]
Glaucoma is a slowly progressive neurodegenerative disease characterized by the loss of retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) and their axons resulting in irreversible blindness of the patients
The studies presented in this review emphasize the importance of the gut microbiome on the host’s immune system
Summary
The human gut microbiome (GM) consists of a plethora of different taxa [1]. The intestines are predominantly colonized with bacteria [2], and several phyla of fungi [3], archaea [4] and viruses [5,6] were reported to be common components of the commensal microflora. Distinct strains can only be identified with high-throughput, full-length 16s sequence data that can be obtained only recently with required accuracy [12] This constitutes essential information, since different strains of the same species can evoke different effects for metabolism or the systemic host immune response. The nature of the intestinal microbiome has major influence on humoral and cellular immunity of the host. B cell repertoire, and therewith the entirety of natural antibodies, is largely dependent on interactions with the commensal microflora [22,23]. IgM antibodies are most widely studied [30], and antibodies of the classes IgG and IgA have been revealed as parts of natural immunity [31,32]. We provide a comprehensive overview about current immunomodulatory treatment strategies by the exogenous supplementation of engineered therapeutic antibodies or their synthetic CDR peptides and discuss their highly specific and versatile modes of action
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