Laboratory of Pharmacogenomics and Individualized Therapy, Department of Pharmacy, School of Health Sciences, University of Patras, Patras, Greece.
Plant Protection Division of Patras, Institute of Industrial and Forage Plants, Patras, Greece.
OMICS. 2022 Apr;26(4):204-217. doi: 10.1089/omi.2022.0015. Epub 2022 Mar 7.
The advances made by microbiome research call for new vocabulary and expansion of our thinking in microbiology. For example, the life-forms presenting in both unicellular and multicellular formats invite us to rethink microbial existence, organization, growth, pathogenicity, and therapeutics in the 21st century. A view of such populations as parts of single organisms with a loose, distributed multicellular organization, introduced here as a germ-ganism, rather than communities, might open up interesting prospects for diagnostics and therapeutics innovation. This study tested and further contextualized the concept of germ-ganism using solid cultures of bacteria and fungi. Based on our findings and the literature reviewed herein, we propose that germ-ganism has synergy with a systems medicine approach by broadening host-environment interactions from cells and microorganisms to a scale of biological ecosystems. Germ-ganism also brings about the possibility of studying the multilevel impacts of novel therapeutic agents within and across networks of microbial ecosystems. The germ-ganism would lend itself, in the long term, to a veritable biocybernetics system, while in the mid-term, we anticipate it will contribute to new diagnostics and therapeutics. Biosecurity applications would be immensely affected by germ-ganism. Industrial applications of germ-ganism are of interest as a more sustainable alternative to costly solutions such as tampered strains/microorganisms. In conclusion, germ-ganism is informed by lessons from microbiome research and invites rethinking microbial existence, organization, and growth as an organism. Germ-ganism has vast ramifications for understanding pathogenicity, and clinical, biosecurity, and biotechnology applications in the current historical moment of the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.
微生物组研究的进展要求我们创造新的词汇，并扩展我们在微生物学方面的思维。例如，既存在于单细胞又存在于多细胞形式的生命形式，邀请我们在 21 世纪重新思考微生物的存在、组织、生长、致病性和治疗方法。将这些群体视为具有松散、分布式多细胞组织的单个生物体的一部分，而不是社区，这种观点可能为诊断和治疗创新开辟有趣的前景。本研究通过细菌和真菌的固体培养测试和进一步阐述了微生物群的概念。基于我们的发现和本文综述的文献，我们提出，微生物群与系统医学方法具有协同作用，将宿主-环境相互作用从细胞和微生物扩大到生物生态系统的规模。微生物群还使研究新型治疗剂在微生物生态系统网络内和跨网络的多层次影响成为可能。从长远来看，微生物群本身将适合于真正的生物控制论系统，而从中期来看，我们预计它将有助于新的诊断和治疗方法。生物安全应用将受到微生物群的极大影响。微生物群的工业应用作为一种更可持续的替代方案，引起了人们的兴趣，例如针对篡改的菌株/微生物的昂贵解决方案。总之，微生物群受到微生物组研究的启发，邀请我们重新思考微生物的存在、组织和生长作为一个生物体。微生物群对理解致病性以及在当前 COVID-19 大流行及以后的临床、生物安全和生物技术应用具有广泛的影响。
