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Mounting evidence in animal models, as well as correlative studies in humans, indicate that the microbes present in the gut can shape immune responses. In a study published today (September 5) in Cell, researchers have confirmed that link in humans. They showed that, for people who hadn’t had a flu shot or hadn’t caught the bug in the previous three years, a course of antibiotics just before a flu shot led to fewer antibodies produced in response to the immunization than among study participants who didn’t take antibiotics.
“It’s really important to do these kinds of studies in human because there’s a lot of work that’s been done in animal models,” says Dan Littman, who studies microbiota-immune system interactions at New York University School of Medicine and did not participate in the work. “While those are very valuable—particularly for understanding mechanistic aspects of how the immune system ...
