Role of microbiome diversity, in the Upper Respiratory Tract of humans in influenza virus infection

Our present knowledge of the nature and extent of the microbial members of the Upper Respiratory Tract (URT) is limited. An effort to establish these basic components is ongoing as part of the Human Microbiome Project (HMP), a NIH Roadmap initiative. To complement results from the 'normal' microbiome obtained through the HMP project; we aim to study the microbiome of the URT of humans with mild to severe infection with Influenza virus. As part of this project we will submit 16S ribosomal bacterial DNA fragments from the URT of both uninfected and infected individuals. Comparison of the microbiome of these different cohorts will elucidate the role the microbiome plays in and disease severity. We will also submit the analyzed metagenomic sequences for a subset of infected people at various time points. These studies would help us address how variable the metagenome at the URT is among humans, how this metagenome affects susceptibility to influenza virus infection and how the metagenome responds to virus infection in the general population.