Infant fungal communities: current knowledge and research opportunities

BMC Medicine

Review

Tonya L. Ward¹  Dan Knights²  Cheryl A. Gale³ 

[1] Biotechnology Institute, University of Minnesota, Saint Paul, MN, USA;Biotechnology Institute, University of Minnesota, Saint Paul, MN, USA;Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA;Department of Pediatrics, University of Minnesota, 2450 Riverside Ave, 55454, Minneapolis, MN, USA;

关键词: Mycobiome;    Fungi;    Microbiome;    Bacteria;    Infant;    Microbiota;    Mycobiota;    Development;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12916-017-0802-z

 received in 2016-08-30, accepted in 2017-01-24,  发布年份 2017

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

The microbes colonizing the infant gastrointestinal tract have been implicated in later-life disease states such as allergies and obesity. Recently, the medical research community has begun to realize that very early colonization events may be most impactful on future health, with the presence of key taxa required for proper immune and metabolic development. However, most studies to date have focused on bacterial colonization events and have left out fungi, a clinically important sub-population of the microbiota. A number of recent findings indicate the importance of host-associated fungi (the mycobiota) in adult and infant disease states, including acute infections, allergies, and metabolism, making characterization of early human mycobiota an important frontier of medical research. This review summarizes the current state of knowledge with a focus on factors influencing infant mycobiota development and associations between early fungal exposures and health outcomes. We also propose next steps for infant fungal mycobiome research, including longitudinal studies of mother–infant pairs while monitoring long-term health outcomes, further exploration of bacterium–fungus interactions, and improved methods and databases for mycobiome quantitation.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© The Author(s). 2017