Publication Date
2021
Journal or Book Title
MBIO
Abstract
Culture-independent studies have revealed that chronic lung infections in persons with cystic fibrosis (pwCF) are rarely limited to one microbial species. Interactions among bacterial members of these polymicrobial communities in the airways of pwCF have been reported to modulate clinically relevant phenotypes. Furthermore, it is clear that a single polymicrobial community in the context of CF airway infections cannot explain the diversity of clinical outcomes. While large 16S rRNA gene- based studies have allowed us to gain insight into the microbial composition and predicted functional capacities of communities found in the CF lung, here we argue that in silico approaches can help build clinically relevant in vitro models of polymicrobial communities that can in turn be used to experimentally test and validate computationally generated hypotheses. Furthermore, we posit that combining computational and experimental approaches will enhance our understanding of mechanisms that drive microbial community function and identify new therapeutics to target polymicrobial infections.
ISSN
2150-7511
ORCID
Jean-Pierre, Fabrice/0000-0002-3056-8356; Vyas, Arsh/0000-0001-6573-3211
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1128/mBio.00006-21
Volume
12
Issue
2
License
UMass Amherst Open Access Policy
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Funder
NIHUnited States Department of Health & Human ServicesNational Institutes of Health (NIH) - USA [R37 AI83256]; Army Research Office [W911NF-16-1-0463]; DartCF [P30-DK117469]
Recommended Citation
Jean-Pierre, Fabrice; Vyas, Arsh; Hampton, Thomas H.; Henson, Michael A.; and O'Toole, George A., "One versus Many: Polymicrobial Communities and the Cystic Fibrosis Airway" (2021). MBIO. 914.
https://doi.org/10.1128/mBio.00006-21