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      The human microbiome, asthma, and allergy

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          Abstract

          The human microbiome can be defined as the microorganisms that reside within and on our bodies and how they interact with the environment. Recent research suggests that numerous mutually beneficial interactions occur between a human and their microbiome, including those that are essential for good health. Modern microbiological detection techniques have contributed to new knowledge about microorganisms in their human environment. These findings reveal that the microbiomes of the lung and gut contribute to the pathogenesis of asthma and allergy. For example, evidence indicates that the microbiome of the gut regulates the activities of helper T cell subsets (Th1 and Th2) that affect the development of immune tolerance. Moreover, recent studies demonstrate differences between the lung microbiomes of healthy and asthmatic subjects. The hygiene and biodiversity hypotheses explain how exposure to microorganisms is associated with asthma and allergy. Although those living in developed countries are exposed to fewer and less diverse microorganisms compared with the inhabitants of developing countries, they are experiencing an increase in the incidence of asthma and allergies. Detailed analyses of the human microbiome, as are being conducted under the auspices of the Human Microbiome Project initiated in 2007, promise to contribute insights into the mechanisms and factors that cause asthma and allergy that may lead to the development of strategies to prevent and treat these diseases.

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          Most cited references52

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          Exposure to environmental microorganisms and childhood asthma.

          Children who grow up in environments that afford them a wide range of microbial exposures, such as traditional farms, are protected from childhood asthma and atopy. In previous studies, markers of microbial exposure have been inversely related to these conditions. In two cross-sectional studies, we compared children living on farms with those in a reference group with respect to the prevalence of asthma and atopy and to the diversity of microbial exposure. In one study--PARSIFAL (Prevention of Allergy-Risk Factors for Sensitization in Children Related to Farming and Anthroposophic Lifestyle)--samples of mattress dust were screened for bacterial DNA with the use of single-strand conformation polymorphism (SSCP) analyses to detect environmental bacteria that cannot be measured by means of culture techniques. In the other study--GABRIELA (Multidisciplinary Study to Identify the Genetic and Environmental Causes of Asthma in the European Community [GABRIEL] Advanced Study)--samples of settled dust from children's rooms were evaluated for bacterial and fungal taxa with the use of culture techniques. In both studies, children who lived on farms had lower prevalences of asthma and atopy and were exposed to a greater variety of environmental microorganisms than the children in the reference group. In turn, diversity of microbial exposure was inversely related to the risk of asthma (odds ratio for PARSIFAL, 0.62; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.44 to 0.89; odds ratio for GABRIELA, 0.86; 95% CI, 0.75 to 0.99). In addition, the presence of certain more circumscribed exposures was also inversely related to the risk of asthma; this included exposure to species in the fungal taxon eurotium (adjusted odds ratio, 0.37; 95% CI, 0.18 to 0.76) and to a variety of bacterial species, including Listeria monocytogenes, bacillus species, corynebacterium species, and others (adjusted odds ratio, 0.57; 95% CI, 0.38 to 0.86). Children living on farms were exposed to a wider range of microbes than were children in the reference group, and this exposure explains a substantial fraction of the inverse relation between asthma and growing up on a farm. (Funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and the European Commission.).
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            Genomics. ENCODE project writes eulogy for junk DNA.

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              Infant gut microbiota and food sensitization: associations in the first year of life.

              The gut microbiota is established during infancy and plays a fundamental role in shaping host immunity. Colonization patterns may influence the development of atopic disease, but existing evidence is limited and conflicting.
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                amund.riiser@gmail.com
                Journal
                Allergy Asthma Clin Immunol
                Allergy Asthma Clin Immunol
                Allergy, Asthma, and Clinical Immunology : Official Journal of the Canadian Society of Allergy and Clinical Immunology
                BioMed Central (London )
                1710-1484
                1710-1492
                10 December 2015
                10 December 2015
                2015
                : 11
                : 35
                Affiliations
                Faculty of Teacher Education and Sports, Sogn og Fjordane University College, Sogndal, Norway
                Article
                102
                10.1186/s13223-015-0102-0
                4674907
                26664362
                b58b938b-926d-4712-b00c-e9d6f04895fc
                © Riiser. 2015

                Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver ( http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.

                History
                : 13 April 2015
                : 3 November 2015
                Funding
                Funded by: Institutional funds
                Categories
                Review
                Custom metadata
                © The Author(s) 2015

                Immunology
                asthma,allergy,microbiome
                Immunology
                asthma, allergy, microbiome

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