Development of In-vitro Model Systems to Study the Effect of the Human Microbiota in Respiratory Diseases

• Main Author: Narang, Pooja
• Format: Dissertation
• Language: English
• Published: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses 01.01.2023
• Subjects: Bacterial infections; Infectious diseases; Metabolites; Microbiology; Pathology; Respiratory syncytial virus; Virology; Viruses
• ISBN: 9798382765099

It is well known that microbiome plays an important role in health and disease. However, no specific cause and effect relationships have been established so far as the current knowledge is evidence based resulting from observational studies. It is critical that the mechanisms driving these interactions between microbiome and host (human) system are understood which requires development of in vitro models to simulate these co-occurrences and study the resulting change in host health and microbiome composition. The aim of this thesis was to develop an in-vitro model system to assess the effect of upper respiratory tract multispecies microbial communities comprising of commensals, potential pathogens and viruses on the human respiratory epithelium. It was shown in this thesis that mixed bacterial communities can be co-cultured with respiratory epithelial cells without causing a cytotoxic effect or impacting the barrier integrity of Calu-3 cells while being able to observe differential immune (cytokine) response by human host respiratory epithelial cells. In this thesis, the immune response and changes in barrier integrity of host cells to viral (HRV) infection and inflammation stimulation were studied, along with measuring resultant changes in the microbial composition.