Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2015 Jul 21;2015(1):179-92.
doi: 10.1093/emph/eov014.

Microbiology and ecology are vitally important to premedical curricula

Val H Smith  1 , Rebecca J Rubinstein  2 , Serry Park  2 , Libusha Kelly  3 , Vanja Klepac-Ceraj  4
Affiliations
Review

Microbiology and ecology are vitally important to premedical curricula

Val H Smith et al. Evol Med Public Health. .

Abstract

Despite the impact of the human microbiome on health, an appreciation of microbial ecology is yet to be translated into mainstream medical training and practice. The human microbiota plays a role in the development of the immune system, in the development and function of the brain, in digestion, and in host defense, and we anticipate that many more functions are yet to be discovered. We argue here that without formal exposure to microbiology and ecology-fields that explore the networks, interactions and dynamics between members of populations of microbes-vitally important links between the human microbiome and health will be overlooked. This educational shortfall has significant downstream effects on patient care and biomedical research, and we provide examples from current research highlighting the influence of the microbiome on human health. We conclude that formally incorporating microbiology and ecology into the premedical curricula is invaluable to the training of future health professionals and critical to the development of novel therapeutics and treatment practices.

Keywords: ecology; human microbiome; microbiology; premedical curricula.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Examples of internal and external factors that can lead to conditions associated with altered microbial communities (modified from Fig. 4 in [58]). A. Key microbe–microbe interactions. Four important kinds of ecological interactions can strongly regulate the growth and population dynamics of a microbial community residing in or upon a human host. (i) Resource competition. The ability of multiple microbial species to compete for growth-limiting resources such as the essential nutrient glucose (red circles) may in part determine their local survival and population dynamics. Note that microbes can also compete for space and for docking sites. (ii) Nutrient cross-feeding. Microbial species 1 produces an essential nutrient such as folate (orange circles) that is in turn consumed by and enables the persistence of a co-resident auxotrophic species (Microbe 2) that requires this resource for growth. (iii) Antibiosis. One microbial species or strain (Microbe 1) may produce an antibiotic (yellow triangles) that is excreted and inhibits or kills another susceptible microorganism (Microbe 2). (iv) Predation. Attacks by a predator (in this example, a bacteriophage virus) results in the infection and death of susceptible prey (in this case, a gut bacterium). (Inspired by and greatly revised from Figure 1 by Seth and Taga [59]). B. Key microbe–host interactions. Four important kinds of ecological interactions can strongly influence the growth and population dynamics of interacting microbial and host cells. (i) Resource competition. Members of the host’s resident microbiome may compete with host cells for growth-limiting resources such as the essential nutrient glucose (red circles). (ii) Metabolite production, conversion and nutrient cross-feeding. One cell type (in this case, the host cell) may produce an essential resource (orange circles) which is then consumed and metabolized to a new metabolite by microbial cells; this microbial metabolite (purple circles) is excreted and is subsequently consumed and used by host cells. Microorganisms can generate metabolites and bacterial components, either of which can interact with receptors on host cells, or have other pharmacological effects on multiple host pathways. (iii) Predation. Predation of microbial cells (black rectangle) may occur by phagocytic host cells. (iv) Physicochemical changes. Microbial cells may excrete non-nutrient metabolic products (in this case, protons) that can alter the local environment and influence the growth and reproduction of host cells. (Inspired by and greatly revised from Figure 1 by Seth and Taga [59]).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Bergey DH. The pedagogics of bacteriology. J Bacteriol 1916;1:5–14. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Costello EK, Stagaman K, Dethlefsen L, et al. The application of ecological theory toward an understanding of the human microbiome. Science 2012;336:1255–62. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Zhou Y, Gao H, Mihindukulasuriya KA, et al. Biogeography of the ecosystems of the healthy human body. Genome Biol 2013;14:R1. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Hou D, Zhou X, Zhong X, et al. Microbiota of the seminal fluid from healthy and infertile men. Fertil Steril 2013;100:1261–9. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Price LB, Liu CM, Johnson KE, et al. The effects of circumcision on the penis microbiome. PLoS One 2010;5:e8422. - PMC - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources