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Life at the beginning: perturbation of the microbiota by antibiotics in early life and its role in health and disease

This Commentary discusses how treatment with antibiotics in infancy shapes host immunity and influences susceptibility later in life to diseases mediated by the immune system.

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Figure 1: Microbial colonization, development of the immune system and their perturbation by treatment with antibiotics early in life.

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Acknowledgements

Supported by the US National Institutes of Health (DK044319, DK051362, DK053056 and DK088199 to R.S.B.), the Harvard Digestive Diseases Center (DK0034854 to R.S.B.), the European Research Council (Starting Grant Agreement 336528 to S.Z.), Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (ZE814/4-1, ZE814/5-1 and ZE814/6-1, and the Excellence Cluster 'Inflammation at Interfaces', to S.Z.) and the European Commission (Marie Curie International Reintegration Grant 256363 to S.Z.).

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Correspondence to Richard S Blumberg.

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Zeissig, S., Blumberg, R. Life at the beginning: perturbation of the microbiota by antibiotics in early life and its role in health and disease. Nat Immunol 15, 307–310 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/ni.2847

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