Reply to Yasuma et al. : Response of Lung Microbiota to Changes of Pulmonary Innate Immunity under Healthy Conditions

Garcia et al response to Yasuma and colleagues regarding their research letter on lung microbiota to changes of pulmonary innate immunity under healthy conditions. The authors inquire about their selection of time points and speculate that had they compared lung microbiota at an earlier time point after exposure, they might have observed an effect of innate immune modulation on lung communities. They agree with the authors that their findings do not exclude the possibility of a transient effect and stated as much in our original manuscript: Although they detected no appreciable effect of Pam2-ODN on lung bacterial communities 6 days after exposure, it is entirely possible that TLR agonism has a short-lived effect on lung microbiota that was resolved by the time of harvest due to the continuous exposure of the lungs to environmental microbiota.