A Few Good Commensals: Gut Microbes Use IFN-γ to Fight Salmonella.

Whereas strong evidence supports the notion that the microbiota promotes immune system maturation in multiple tissues, the identity of the specific microbes that elicit protective immunity to different infections is less clear. In a recent issue of Cell Host & Microbe, Thiemann et al. (2017) report the identification of specific gut bacteria that protect from Salmonella infection by priming host IFN-γ responses.