Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 2, 2026

An Intestinal Gut Organ Culture System for Analyzing Host-Microbiota Interactions
Published on: June 30, 2021
Immune and genetic gardening of the intestinal microbiome
Jonathan P Jacobs1, Jonathan Braun2
1Division of Digestive Diseases, Department of Medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
Abstract:
The mucosal immune system - consisting of adaptive and innate immune cells as well as the epithelium - is profoundly influenced by its microbial environment. There is now growing evidence that the converse is also true, that the immune system shapes the composition of the intestinal microbiome. During conditions of health, this bidirectional interaction achieves a homeostasis in which inappropriate immune responses to non-pathogenic microbes are averted and immune activity suppresses blooms of potentially pathogenic microbes (pathobionts). Genetic alteration in immune/epithelial function can affect host gardening of the intestinal microbiome, contributing to the diversity of intestinal microbiota within a population and in some cases allowing for unfavorable microbial ecologies (dysbiosis) that confer disease susceptibility.
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