Protective Microbiota: From Localized to Long-Reaching Co-Immunity

Lynn Chiu , Thomas Bazin (1) , Marie-Elise Truchetet (2) , Thierry Schaeverbeke (3) , Laurence Delhaes (4) , Thomas Pradeu (5)

1 UB - Université de Bordeaux
2 Immunology and Allergy
3 Hôpital Pellegrin
4 CIIL - Centre d’Infection et d’Immunité de Lille - INSERM U 1019 - UMR 9017 - UMR 8204
5 ImmunoConcept - Immunology from Concept and Experiments to Translation

Resident microbiota do not just shape host immunity, they can also contribute to host protection against pathogens and infectious diseases. Previous reviews of the protective roles of the microbiota have focused exclusively on colonization resistance localized within a microenvironment. This review shows that the protection against pathogens also involves the mitigation of pathogenic impact without eliminating the pathogens (i.e., “disease tolerance”) and the containment of microorganisms to prevent pathogenic spread. Protective microorganisms can have an impact beyond their niche, interfering with the entry, establishment, growth, and spread of pathogenic microorganisms. More fundamentally, we propose a series of conceptual clarifications in support of the idea of a “co-immunity,” where an organism is protected by both its own immune system and components of its microbiota.

Mots clés: host–microbiota symbiosis; colonization resistance; microbial ecology; disease tolerance; pathogens; containment; infectious diseases

Domaines: Immunologie; Médecine humaine et pathologie; Microbiologie et Parasitologie; Sciences de l'Homme et Société; Histoire, Philosophie et Sociologie des sciences

Lynn Chiu, Thomas Bazin, Marie-Elise Truchetet, Thierry Schaeverbeke, Laurence Delhaes, et al.. Protective Microbiota: From Localized to Long-Reaching Co-Immunity. Frontiers in Immunology, 2017, 8, pp.1678 - 1678. ⟨10.3389/fimmu.2017.01678⟩. ⟨hal-01673350⟩