Mom Knows Best: The Universality of Maternal Microbial Transmission
Open Access
- 20 August 2013
- journal article
- essay
- Published by Public Library of Science (PLoS) in PLoS Biology
- Vol. 11 (8), e1001631
- https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001631
Abstract
The sterile womb paradigm is an enduring premise in biology that human infants are born sterile. Recent studies suggest that infants incorporate an initial microbiome before birth and receive copious supplementation of maternal microbes through birth and breastfeeding. Moreover, evidence for microbial maternal transmission is increasingly widespread across animals. This collective knowledge compels a paradigm shift—one in which maternal transmission of microbes advances from a taxonomically specialized phenomenon to a universal one in animals. It also engenders fresh views on the assembly of the microbiome, its role in animal evolution, and applications to human health and disease.This publication has 115 references indexed in Scilit:
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