Title: Archaea and Their Potential Role in Human Disease | Infection and Immunity
Headings: Archaea and Their Potential Role in Human Disease
Archaea and Their Potential Role in Human Disease
POTENTIAL PATHOGENICITY OF ARCHAEA
POTENTIAL ASSOCIATIONS OF ARCHAEA WITH HUMAN DISEASE
CONCLUSION AND FUTURE STUDIES
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
REFERENCES
KEYWORDS

Content: Difficulties in the isolation and cultivation of archaea also contribute to a relative lack of knowledge. No definitive virulence genes or factors have been described in archaea to date. Nevertheless, archaea may have the means, and they certainly have the opportunity, to cause disease. Archaea share some characteristics with known pathogens that may reflect the potential to cause disease. Such characteristics include ample access to a host (i.e., opportunity) and capabilities for long-term colonization and coexistence with endogenous flora in a host. The detection of anaerobic archaea in the human colonic ( 36 ), vaginal ( 2 ), and oral microbial flora ( 1) demonstrates their ability to colonize the human host. Details regarding their survival in such human niches, including human immune system evasion and competition with normal human flora, however, are largely unavailable. Whether or not members of the Archaea possess virulence factors as commonly defined (i.e., the means for causing disease) is unclear. Of course, generalizations about a group of organisms as diverse as archaea are problematic. With this in mind, one might ask whether there are any fundamental features shared by archaea that should preclude them from acting as pathogens.