Escherichia coli, Raw sequence reads. Escherichia coli

Under eubiotic conditions commensal microbes are known to provide a natural competitive shield against invading bacterial pathogens in the densely colonized intestinal tract, on the skin or on the vaginal mucosa. A comparable function of commensal bacteria in the respiratory tract was so far not described. Here, we evaluate the role of respiratory microbiota in Pneumococcus colonization of the lung in a mouse model.