Banks Kayla C, Ericsson Aaron C, Reinero Carol R, Giuliano Elizabeth A
Department of Veterinary Medicine and Surgery, College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri.
Department of Veterinary Pathobiology, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri.
Vet Ophthalmol. 2019 Sep;22(5):716-725. doi: 10.1111/vop.12676. Epub 2019 May 9.
Ocular pathogens cause many painful and vision-threatening diseases such as infectious keratitis, uveitis, and endophthalmitis. While virulent pathogens and pathobionts play important roles in disease pathogenesis, the scientific community has long assumed disruption of the ocular surface occurs prior to microbial colonization and subsequent infection. While nonpathogenic bacteria are often detected in corneal and conjunctival cultures from healthy eyes, cultures also frequently fail to yield growth of common ocular pathogens or nonpathogenic bacteria. This prompts the following question: Is the ocular surface populated by a stable microbial population that cannot be detected using standard culture techniques? The study of the microbiome has recently become a widespread focus in physician and veterinary medicine. Research suggests a pivotal symbiotic relationship with these microbes to maintain healthy host tissues, and when altered is associated with various disease states ("dysbiosis"). The microbiota that lives within and on mammalian bodies have long been known to influence health and susceptibility to infection. However, limitations of traditional culture methods have resulted in an incomplete understanding of what many now call the "forgotten organ," that is, the microbiome. With the introduction of high-throughput sequencing, physician ophthalmology has recognized an ocular surface with much more diverse microbial communities than suspected based on traditional culture. This article reviews the salient features of the ocular surface microbiome and highlights important future applications following the advent of molecular techniques for microbial identification, including characterizing ocular surface microbiomes in our veterinary species and their potential role in management of infectious and inflammatory ocular diseases.
眼部病原体可引发多种疼痛且威胁视力的疾病，如感染性角膜炎、葡萄膜炎和眼内炎。虽然致病性病原体和病理共生菌在疾病发病机制中起重要作用，但科学界长期以来一直认为眼表破坏发生在微生物定植和随后的感染之前。虽然在健康眼睛的角膜和结膜培养物中经常检测到非致病性细菌，但培养物也常常无法培养出常见的眼部病原体或非致病性细菌。这就引发了以下问题：眼表是否存在一个使用标准培养技术无法检测到的稳定微生物群落？微生物组的研究最近已成为医学和兽医学广泛关注的焦点。研究表明，与这些微生物存在关键的共生关系以维持宿主组织的健康，而这种关系一旦改变就与各种疾病状态（“生态失调”）相关。长期以来，人们已知存在于哺乳动物体内和体表的微生物群会影响健康和感染易感性。然而，传统培养方法的局限性导致人们对现在许多人所称的“被遗忘的器官”，即微生物组，了解不完整。随着高通量测序技术的引入，眼科医学已经认识到眼表的微生物群落比基于传统培养所怀疑的要多样化得多。本文综述了眼表微生物组的显著特征，并强调了微生物鉴定分子技术出现后的重要未来应用，包括对我们兽医物种的眼表微生物组进行特征分析及其在感染性和炎症性眼病管理中的潜在作用。
