One Commensal Bacterial Molecule — All We Need for Health?

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Abstract
Humans are not inherently endowed with a healthy immune system. The fate of the immune system depends on its interaction with a large variety of commensal microorganisms, most of which live in the lower gastrointestinal tract.1 How the body maintains homeostasis with an incredibly complex enteric microflora is beginning to be discerned. For example, it was recently shown that the recognition of commensal bacteria by epithelial cells protects against intestinal injury.2 Appropriate immune recognition of enteric bacteria is also essential to host–bacteria symbiosis, and a recent report by Mazmanian and colleagues implicates a single bacterial molecule as critical to this . . .