Infant fungal communities: Current knowledge and research opportunities

摘要: The microbes colonizing the infant gastrointestinal tract have been implicated in later-life disease states such as allergies and obesity. Recently, medical research community has begun to realize that very early colonization events may be most impactful on future health, with presence of key taxa required for proper immune metabolic development. However, studies date focused bacterial left out fungi, a clinically important sub-population microbiota. A number recent findings indicate importance host-associated fungi (the mycobiota) adult states, including acute infections, allergies, metabolism, making characterization human mycobiota an frontier research. This review summarizes current state knowledge focus factors influencing development associations between fungal exposures health outcomes. We also propose next steps mycobiome research, longitudinal mother–infant pairs while monitoring long-term outcomes, further exploration bacterium–fungus interactions, improved methods databases quantitation.