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  • Review Article
  • Published:

Microbiota—implications for immunity and transplantation

Nature Reviews Nephrology volume 11, pages 342–353 (2015)Cite this article

Subjects

Key Points

  • Measuring the microbiome and/or microbiota is challenging; new bioinformatic techniques are becoming available that can help identify patterns in complex data sets

  • Numerous pre-clinical studies show that the microbiota has profound effects on the host immune system, which can influence the balance between tolerance and immunity

  • Microbial species and gene catalogues can help identify diagnostic biomarkers that correlate with outcomes in organ transplant recipients

  • Functional analyses of the microbiota will be required to characterize specific pathophysiological pathways and define therapeutic interventions

  • Clinical studies will be required to correlate features of the microbiota with the outcomes of organ transplantation, including graft survival, infection, rejection, recurrent disease, inflammation, alloreactivity and fibrosis

  • Challenges lie in translating associations between the microbiota and transplantation outcomes into definitive demonstrations of mechanism and causality, which are limitations that currently plague clinical investigation of the microbiota

Abstract

Each individual harbours a unique set of commensal microorganisms, collectively referred to as the microbiota. Notably, these microorganisms exceed the number of cells in the human body by 10-fold. This finding has accelerated a shift in our understanding of human physiology, with the realization that traits necessary for health are both encoded and influenced by the human genome and the microbiota. Our understanding of the aetiology of complex diseases has, therefore, evolved with increasing awareness that the human microbiota has an active and critical role in maintaining health and inducing disease. Indeed, findings from bioinformatic studies indicate that the microbiota and microbiome have multiple effects on the innate and adaptive immune systems, with effects on infection, autoimmune disease and cancer. In this Review, we first address the important statistical and informatics aspects that should be considered when characterizing the composition of microbiota. We next highlight the effects of the microbiota on the immune system and the implications of these effects on organ failure and transplantation. Finally, we reflect on the future perspectives for studies of the microbiota, including novel diagnostic tests and therapeutics.

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Figure 1: Overview of the processing and analysis steps of 16S rRNA gene sequencing data (Illumina MiSeq® [San Diego, USA] paired-reads).
Figure 2: Interaction between the microbiota and immune system at the mucosal surface.
Figure 3: The relationship between microbiota and alloimmunity.
Figure 4: Translating microbiota and clinical data to therapeutic strategies.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departments of Surgery, Microbiology, and Immunology, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Center for Vascular and Inflammatory Diseases, 29 South Greene Street, Baltimore, 21201, MD, USA

    Jonathan S. Bromberg

  2. Institute of Biological Chemistry and Nutrition, University of Hohenheim, Gardenstrasse 30, Stuttgart, 70593, Germany

    W. Florian Fricke

  3. Department of Surgery, Center for Vascular and Inflammatory Diseases, University of Maryland School of Medicine, 801 West Baltimore Street, Baltimore, 21201, MD, USA

    C. Colin Brinkman & Thomas Simon

  4. Institute for Genome Sciences, University of Maryland School of Medicine, 802 West Baltimore Street, Baltimore, 21201, MD, USA

    Emmanuel F. Mongodin

Authors
  1. Jonathan S. Bromberg
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  2. W. Florian Fricke
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  3. C. Colin Brinkman
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  4. Thomas Simon
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  5. Emmanuel F. Mongodin
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Contributions

All authors researched the data for the article, provided substantial contributions to discussions of its content, wrote the article and undertook review and/or editing of the manuscript before submission.

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Correspondence to Jonathan S. Bromberg.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Bromberg, J., Fricke, W., Brinkman, C. et al. Microbiota—implications for immunity and transplantation. Nat Rev Nephrol 11, 342–353 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrneph.2015.70

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