An organism is defined as "an individual living thing capable of responding to stimuli, growing, reproducing, and maintaining homeostasis." Early during evolution multicellular organisms explored the advantages of a symbiotic life. Mammals harbor a complex aggregate of microorganisms (called microbiota) that includes bacteria, fungi, and archaea. Some of these bacteria have already defined beneficial roles for the human host that include the ability to break down nutrients that could not otherwise be digested, preventing the growth of harmful species, as well as the ability to produce vitamins or hormones. It is intuitive that along the evolutionary path several mechanisms favored bacteria that provided advantages to the host which, in return, avoided launching an aggressive immunological response against them. The intestinal immunological response does not ignore the lumenal content, on the contrary, immune surveillance is favored by continuous antigen sampling. Some intestinal epithelial cells (ECs) are crucial during the sampling process, others actively participate in the defense mechanism. In essence the epithelium acts as a traffic light, communicating to the inside world whether conditions are safe or dangerous, and thus influencing immunological response. In this review we will discuss the dynamic factors that act on the intestinal ECs and how they directly or indirectly influence immune cells during states of health and disease.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 1. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 17 October 2013.
All research outputs
#20,653,708
of 25,371,288 outputs
Outputs from Frontiers in immunology
#24,734
of 31,507 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#228,819
of 288,991 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Frontiers in immunology
#318
of 503 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,371,288 research outputs across all sources so far. This one is in the 10th percentile – i.e., 10% of other outputs scored the same or lower than it.
So far Altmetric has tracked 31,507 research outputs from this source. They typically receive more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 8.4. This one is in the 13th percentile – i.e., 13% of its peers scored the same or lower than it.
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We're also able to compare this research output to 503 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one is in the 33rd percentile – i.e., 33% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.
