Figure - PMC

Skip to main content

An official website of the United States government

Here's how you know

Here's how you know

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

View full-text article in PMC

. 2013 Apr 22;9(1):15. doi: 10.1186/1710-1492-9-15

Search in PMC
Search in PubMed
View in NLM Catalog
Add to search

Copyright © 2013 Azad et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

PMC Copyright notice

Model for the possible influence of pets and siblings on infant gut microbiota and subsequent development of atopic disease. Household pets (D, dogs; C, cats) and siblings increase infant exposure to environmental microbes, promoting enrichment for distinct combinations of organisms within the gut microbiota; overall richness and diversity are also impacted. Despite favoring different microbiota profiles, the net effect of both pets and siblings is to promote healthy immune system development and protect against atopic disease. Further research is required to characterize the underlying biological mechanisms.