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Microbiota

Leishmaniasis breaks the equilibrium

Nature Reviews Microbiology volume 15, page 451 (2017)Cite this article

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The skin microbiota affects wound healing, inflammatory and immune responses to infections, and chronic skin diseases. Gimblet et al. investigated the role of the skin microbiota in cutaneous leishmaniasis and found that infection with Leishmania spp. parasites caused a decrease in bacterial diversity in the skin of both humans and mice; in particular, this dysbiosis was characterized by a greater abundance of Staphylococcus spp. and Streptococcus spp. in infected individuals than in healthy individuals. This dysbiosis seemed to be transmissible to uninfected distant skin sites, as well as to co-housed naive mice. Staphylococcus spp. were found to be dominant in moderate lesions, whereas Streptococcus spp. were more abundant in severe lesions in infected mice, which suggests that disease severity contributes to dysbiosis. Moreover, the transfer of the dysbiotic microbiota to naive mice prior to infection exacerbated skin inflammation and increased disease severity compared with control mice.

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References

  1. Gimblet, C. et al. Cutaneous leishmaniasis induces a transmissible dysbiotic skin microbiota that promotes skin inflammation. Cell Host Microbe http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chom.2017.06.006 (2017)

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  1. Irene Vacca
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Vacca, I. Leishmaniasis breaks the equilibrium. Nat Rev Microbiol 15, 451 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrmicro.2017.82

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