New insight on how bacteria in the lungs protect against invading pathogens has been published today in the open-access eLife journal.
The study in mice shows that a strain of lung bacteria called Lactobacillus provides a barrier against Streptococcus pneumoniae (S. pneumoniae) colonisation in animals previously infected with influenza A virus when applied therapeutically following infection. S. pneumoniae can cause severe pneumonia especially in elderly patients. In light of increasing antibiotic resistance, these findings suggest that probiotics may offer an alternative treatment approach for bacterial lung infections.
In healthy organisms, ‘commensal’ bacteria, which live inside the host without harming it, provide a competitive barrier against invading bacterial pathogens. “It is already well known how commensal bacteria in the gut fight off pathogens,” explains co-first author Soner Yildiz, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Geneva, Switzerland. “But how lung bacteria such as Lactobacillus carry out this role is less clear.”
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