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
. 2021 Oct 8;22(19):10872.
doi: 10.3390/ijms221910872.

The Lung Microbiome during Health and Disease

Kazuma Yagi  1 , Gary B Huffnagle  2   3   4 , Nicholas W Lukacs  1   4 , Nobuhiro Asai  1
Affiliations
Review

The Lung Microbiome during Health and Disease

Kazuma Yagi et al. Int J Mol Sci. .

Abstract

Healthy human lungs have traditionally been considered to be a sterile organ. However, culture-independent molecular techniques have reported that large numbers of microbes coexist in the lung and airways. The lungs harbor diverse microbial composition that are undetected by previous approaches. Many studies have found significant differences in microbial composition between during health and respiratory disease. The lung microbiome is likely to not only influence susceptibility or causes of diseases but be affected by disease activities or responses to treatment. Although lung microbiome research has some limitations from study design to reporting, it can add further dimensionality to host-microbe interactions. Moreover, there is a possibility that extending understanding to the lung microbiome with new multiple omics approaches would be useful for developing both diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers for respiratory diseases in clinical settings.

Keywords: asthma; bronchiectasis; chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD); host-microbe interactions; lung cancer; lung microbiome; respiratory viral infections.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Key Ecological Factors Determining the Lung Microbiome: microbial immigration, microbial elimination, and the relative reproduction rates of its community members. The lung microbiome is determined mainly by microbial immigration and elimination in healthy subjects. In severe lung disease, the composition of lung microbiome is primarily determined by regional growth conditions. Adapted from Dickson et al., 2014 [27].
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Huffnagle G.B., Dickson R.P., Lukacs N.W. The respiratory tract microbiome and lung inflammation: A two-way street. Mucosal. Immunol. 2017;10:299–306. doi: 10.1038/mi.2016.108. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Dickson R.P., Erb-Downward J.R., Martinez F.J., Huffnagle G.B. The Microbiome and the Respiratory Tract. Ann. Rev. Physiol. 2016;78:481–504. doi: 10.1146/annurev-physiol-021115-105238. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Gleeson K., Eggli D.F., Maxwell S.L. Quantitative aspiration during sleep in normal subjects. Chest. 1997;111:1266–1272. doi: 10.1378/chest.111.5.1266. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Huxley E.J., Viroslav J., Gray W.R., Pierce A.K. Pharyngeal aspiration in normal adults and patients with depressed consciousness. Am. J. Med. 1978;64:564–568. doi: 10.1016/0002-9343(78)90574-0. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Hilty M., Burke C., Pedro H., Cardenas P., Bush A., Bossley C., Davies J., Ervine A., Poulter L., Pachter L., et al. Disordered microbial communities in asthmatic airways. PLoS ONE. 2010;5:e8578. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0008578. - DOI - PMC - PubMed