About this Research Topic
Recent multi-omics technological advances have illuminated the importance of the human microbiome in health and diseases. Associations between various diseases and the dysbiosis of the human microbiome are testaments to the importance of the microbial community in modulating host health. Concomitantly, the microbiome is influenced by the host’s environmental surroundings and lifestyles. Given the importance of the human microbiome, the close-knit relationship between the human microbiome and its adjacent environment, and the importance of pollution exposure for human health, it is conceivable that some of the detrimental effects of pollution on human health may exert its effects via modulating the human microbiome.
In this special issue, we explore the potential connections between environmental pollution, the human microbiome, and health and disease. We hope that the creation of this special issue will ultimately lead to increased awareness and appreciation to use the human microbiome to help tackle the detrimental health effects brought on by pollution exposure.
The special issue welcomes submissions of original research articles, reviews, and perspective pieces that pertain to how urban pollution may play roles in shaping the human microbiome under biomedical and/or ecological contexts. In particular, the submitted works should attempt to, based on any one or more of the multi-omics technologies (amplicon/shotgun metagenomics, meta-transcriptomics, metabolomics, meta-proteomics) to examine and characterize how air, water, soil/land, or waste pollution may influence microbial assemblages on human hosts, and how these influences may lead to diseases. Submission of research articles that include the collection of environmental and pollution metadata, and the integration of metadata and omics data to identify links between pollution exposure and the microbiome are encouraged. Original work involving the benchmarking of methodologies with applications in improving detection of urban pollutants and its roles in the human microbiome are also appreciated. Finally, we also advocate the submission of works relating to how the human microbiome may potentially respond or adapt to urban pollution exposure to help minimize or reverse the detrimental effects pollution has on human hosts.
Keywords: pollution, Microbiome, health, multi-omics, dysbiosis, human microbiome
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.