Question

Choose any part of your body and discuss common resident Gram-positive bacteria that may be found in that location. What are their specific roles? (150-250 words)

Choose a different part of your body and discuss common resident Gram-negative bacteria that may be found in that location. What are their specific roles? (150-250 words)

Answer 1

We are going to choose the skin. Skin microbiota starts to forma just seconds after the individuals is born, the skind is sterile inside the womb but exposure to the environment provides organisms to it. There several species that live in basically 2 types of skin environments: Moist or dry areas in the skin. The moist areas tend to show Staphylococcus and Corynebacterium, while the dry areas show Proteoacteria, Actinobacteria, Firmicutes and Bacterioidetes. Skin microbiota was initialy proposed as a commensal relation, since it seemed bacteria could benefit from the human environment while humans were unaffected by the bacterial presence, but further studies have shown humans may also benefit from the microbiota presence.

The microbiota in the skind has shown to contribute to the immune response of the organism, by inhibiting the growth of pathogenic strains and some studies have even shown that it can cooperate with the human antimicrobial peptides to increase the pathogen killing. The TLR signaling pathway is one that has been studied in relation to commenal skin microbiota, as it has been demonstrated that the commensals can induce the activation of such signaling.