Microbiome and diseases: Pathogen infection

Abstract

The host and the intestinal microbiota contribute in manifold ways to an immune balance and defense against diseases and pathogens. Infectious diseases of the intestine are major diseases which severely threaten individual and global health. Enteropathogenic agents causing infectious diseases have evolved specific tactics how they interact with the host and with the microbiota simultaneously. This chapter characterizes the main players of the intestinal niche, which contribute to the wellbeing of the host and can ward off or limit pathogenic invaders. It also illustrates, using a few prominent and well-studied examples, how intestinal pathogenic agents can interact with both the host and the microbiota in order to promote their own expansion, to overcome the defenses by the resident microbiota and the mucosal barrier, and how they finally cause disease. This chapter also introduces novel ways how to treat intestinal infections by addressing the microbiota.