title: Dialogue between skin microbiota and immunity.
abstract: Human skin, the body's largest organ, functions as a physical barrier to bar the entry of foreign pathogens, while concomitantly providing a home to myriad commensals. Over a human's life span, keratinized skin cells, immune cells, and microbes all interact to integrate the processes of maintaining skin's physical and immune barrier under homeostatic healthy conditions and also under multiple stresses, such as wounding or infection. In this Review, we explore the intricate interactions of microbes and immune cells on the skin surface and within associated appendages to regulate this orchestrated maturation in the context of both host physiological changes and environmental challenges.
authors.affiliation: Program in Barrier Immunity and Repair and Mucosal Immunology Section, Laboratory of Parasitic Diseases, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, National Institute of Health (NIH), Bethesda, MD, USA. ybelkaid@niaid.nih.gov jsegre@nhgri.nih.gov.
authors.forename: Yasmine
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Belkaid
authors.affiliation: Microbial Genomics Section, Translational and Functional Genomics Branch, National Human Genome Research Institute, NIH, Bethesda, MD, USA. ybelkaid@niaid.nih.gov jsegre@nhgri.nih.gov.
authors.forename: Julia A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Segre
mesh_terms: D056704:Adaptive Immunity; D003872:Dermatitis / Q000276:immunology; D041981:Gastrointestinal Tract / Q000276:immunology; D006706:Homeostasis; D006801:Humans; D007109:Immunity; D007153:Immunologic Deficiency Syndromes / Q000276:immunology; D064307:Microbiota / Q000235:genetics / Q000276:immunology*; D012867:Skin / Q000276:immunology* / Q000382:microbiology*