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Curr Allergy Asthma Rep (2013) 13:453461
DOI 10.1007/s11882-013-0355-y
ASTHMA (WJ CALHOUN AND SP PETERS, SECTION EDITORS)
Asthma Microbiome Studies and the Potential for New Therapeutic Strategies
Yvonne J. Huang
Published online: 25 May 2013# Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013
Abstract Recent applications of culture-independent tools for microbiome profiling have revealed significant relationships between asthma and microbiota associated with the environment, gut, or airways. Studies of the airway microbiome in particular represent a new frontier in pulmonary research. Although these studies are relatively new, current evidence suggests the possibility of new therapeutic strategies for the treatment or prevention of asthma. In this article, recent literature on microbiota and asthma are critically reviewed, with a particular focus on studies of the airway microbiome. Perspectives are presented on how growing knowledge of relationships between the microbiome and asthma is likely to translate into improved understanding of asthma pathogenesis, its heterogeneity, and opportunities for novel treatment approaches.
Keywords Asthma . Microbiome . 16S ribosomal RNA . Microarray . Sequencing . Therapy . Respiratory microbiota . Treatment-resistant asthma
Introduction
The potential relationships between microbial exposures, infections, and asthma have long been of, and continue to stimulate, much scientific interest. Areas of investigation have spanned from the role of early life microbial exposures and gut microbial colonization in the development of allergy or asthma [16], to studies of airway infections in established asthma [711, 12]. Historically, approaches for characterizing microbial exposures or infection patterns
in samples of interest have included serologic studies, microbial cultures, or microorganism-specific molecular tests.
In recent years, more detailed analysis of total microbial community composition has been made possible by the development of culture-independent techniques with greater sensitivity in detecting microbial species, in particular bacteria. Conventional culture methods have low sensitivity in bacterial detection for several reasons, including organisms that are fastidious to grow or are as yet non-culturable. However, a commonly applied culture-independent approach to detect bacteria takes advantage of features of broadly conserved bacterial genes to detect species in a sample using polymerase chain reaction amplification, without need for prior knowledge of the specific bacterial composition present. Coupled with high-throughput profiling platforms such as microarrays and next-generation sequencing, such culture-independent techniques have enabled much deeper characterization of microbiota associated with specific environments, including...