Abstract
The human skin microbiome plays an important role in both health and disease. Microbial biofilms are a well-characterized mode of surface-associated growth, which present community-like behaviors. Additionally, biofilms are a critical element in certain skin diseases. We review how the perception of the resident skin microbiota has evolved from the early linkages of certain microbes to disease states, to a more comprehensive and intricate understanding brought on by biofilm and microbiome revelations. Rapidly expanding arsenals of experimental methods are opening new horizons in the study of human-microbe and microbe-microbe interactions. Microbial community profiling has largely remained a separate discipline from that of biofilm research, yet the introduction of metatranscriptomics, metabolomics, and the ability to distinguish between dormant and active members of a community have all paved the road toward a convergent cognizance of the encounter between these two microbial disciplines.
Original language | American English |
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Article number | 3 |
Journal | npj Biofilms and Microbiomes |
Volume | 2 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 1 Dec 2016 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:SM is supported by the Israel Ministry of Science, Technology and Space, Grant No. 3-11174. MB is supported in part by The Kaete Klausner Fellowship.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 The Author(s).