Research into the human microbiome has garnered more than U.S. $1.7 billion in funding over the past decade, reflecting the medical community’s growing interest in better understanding commensal microbiota and its role in the health of multiorgan systems. A recent review article published online in Current Allergy and Asthma Reports focused on research into the effects of microbiota in allergy, asthma, and occupational lung disease.

While a range of exposures in early life, such as vaginal delivery, pet exposure, and other childhood environmental exposures, are linked with reduced allergy risk, changes in microbiota are associated with atopic dermatitis, allergic rhinitis, food allergy, and asthma, the article explained.

Specifically, cutaneous microbiome changes can lead to Staphylococcus aureus overgrowth and increase the risk for atopic dermatitis (AD) flare-ups.

The article noted that Dysbiosis, or an imbalance in microbiota, in the nasal bacteriome is an emerging topic of interest in allergic rhinitis. Gut dysbiosis that decreases short chain fatty acids, meanwhile, is known to exist in patients with distinct food allergies.

“This [airway] dysbiosis dysregulates the crosstalk between the gut-lung axis and poses a serious risk for asthma development,” wrote the corresponding author Derrick R. Samuelson, PhD, and the coauthor Ashley Peer, both University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, Nebraska.

In one study, pig farmers had less diversity in microbiota species compared with nonexposed participants. In another, veterinary students showed a significant change in gut microbiota following a 3-month internship at a swine farm; 6 months later, the changes only partially reverted.

Industrial exposure to metalworking fluid is linked with an increase of Pseudomonas in the lung, skin, and nasal samples of workers with pulmonary symptoms, the review reported. Dust exposure and chemical/gas/ smoke exposures have also been associated with specific microbiome changes in various studies.

“The role of the mucosal microbiota in the development and severity of allergy, asthma, and occupational lung disease is only beginning to take shape,” researchers wrote. “However, advances in our understanding of these links have tremendous potential to lead to new clinical interventions to reduce allergy, asthma, and occupational lung disease morbidity.”