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The Human Mycobiome and its Impact on Health and Disease

  • Genomics and Pathogenesis (S Shoham, Section Editor)
  • Published:
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Abstract

Until recently, the human microbiome was synonymous with the bacterial community. Fortunately, recent studies have shown that the human microbiome is complex and composed of bacteria, fungi and viruses. Characterizing the fungal community “mycobiome” in health (involving oral cavity, skin, and gastrointestinal tract body sites) is paving the way to defining the changes that this community undergoes in disease. Although the number of studies investigating the mycobiome in disease is small, findings from these investigations are exciting and beginning to show that fungi, apart from their role as normal flora or direct pathogens, may aggravate disease symptoms in specific patient populations (e.g., inflammation in patients with ulcerative colitis). Such unexpected findings provide impetus for the conduct of research aimed at elucidating the role of the fungal community, and its interactions with other microbial communities, in immunocompromised diseases. Funding of these research efforts is warranted.

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Compliance with Ethics Guidelines

Conflict of Interest

MA Ghannoum declares no conflicts of interest.

PK Mukherjee declares no conflicts of interest.

Human and Animal Rights and Informed Consent

Written informed consent was obtained from all participants in this study. One study that is described in this review entitled “Characterization of the Oral Fungal Microbiome (Mycobiome) in Healthy Individuals” involved human subjects. Recruitment of study participants in that study was performed according to protocol (number 20070413) approved by the Human Subjects Institutional Review Board (IRB) of Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Medical Mycology, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, 44106, USA

    Mahmoud A. Ghannoum & Pranab K. Mukherjee

  2. Department of Dermatology, Center for Medical Mycology, 11106 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, OH, 44106, USA

    Mahmoud A. Ghannoum

Authors
  1. Mahmoud A. Ghannoum
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  2. Pranab K. Mukherjee
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Correspondence to Mahmoud A. Ghannoum.

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Ghannoum, M.A., Mukherjee, P.K. The Human Mycobiome and its Impact on Health and Disease. Curr Fungal Infect Rep 7, 345–350 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12281-013-0162-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12281-013-0162-x

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