When Cultures Meet: The Landscape of “Social” Interactions between the Host and Its Indigenous Microbes

Hidradenitis suppurativa: A folliculotropic disease of innate immune barrier dysfunction?

The innate immune system of human skin consists of a multi-layered barrier consisting of cells and soluble effector molecules charged with maintaining homeostasis and responding to insults and infections. It has become increasingly clear that these barrier layers become compromised in skin diseases, especially in disorders of an (auto)inflammatory nature. In the case of hidradenitis suppurativa, great strides have been made in recent years in characterizing the underlying breakdown in homeostatic innate immunity, including an increasing understanding of the central role of the hair follicle in this process. This breakdown appears to occur at multiple levels: the pilosebaceous unit, associated epithelium, the cutaneous microbiome, alteration of immune cell function and local molecular events such as complement activation. This review seeks to summarize, contextualize and analyse critically our current understanding of how these innate immune barriers become dysregulated in the early stage(s) of hidradenitis suppurativa, and to speculate on where potential hidradenitis suppurativa research could be most fruitful.

Preimmune Recognition and Response to Microbial Metabolites

It is now well understood that the eukaryotic host has evolved multiple mechanisms to monitor and respond to the diverse and biochemically active microbiota that thrives in a symbiotic fashion in the gut and other tissues. Generally, these mechanisms are based on traditional notions of innate and adaptive immune processes, which are mediated by recognition of, and response to, microbially derived macromolecules. Microbes themselves are metabolically active and contribute a vast array of small molecules, not present in germ-free model systems, with diverse putative and unknown biological function, and intensive work is ongoing to unravel their roles in physiological systems. Metazoans have evolved and maintain distinct gene regulatory networks to detect and respond to environmental, non-self-molecules (xenobiotics), and interestingly, recent investigation has shown that these pathways are operational in the detection and response to microbiota-derived small metabolites. These processes likely represent a general mechanism of host-microbe crosstalk, and they have clinical implications in drug and xenobiotic metabolism.

Gut Microbiota in Intestinal and Liver Disease

It is known that the gut microbiota, the numerically vast and taxonomically diverse microbial communities that thrive in a symbiotic fashion within our alimentary tract, can affect the normal physiology of the gastrointestinal tract and liver. Further, disturbances of the microbiota community structure from both endogenous and exogenous influences as well as the failure of host responsive mechanisms have been implicated in a variety of disease processes. Mechanistically, alterations in intestinal permeability and dysbiosis of the microbiota can result in inflammation, immune activation, and exposure to xenobiotic influences. Additionally, the gut and liver are continually exposed to small molecule products of the microbiota with proinflammatory, gene regulatory, and oxidative properties. Long-term coevolution has led to tolerance and incorporation of these influences into normal physiology and homeostasis; conversely, changes in this equilibrium from either the host or the microbial side can result in a wide variety of immune, inflammatory, metabolic, and neoplastic intestinal and hepatic disorders.