What the nose knows of cystic fibrosis microbes and hypertonic saline.

In this issue of Cell Host & Microbe, Steinberg et al.1 present a microbial gene atlas of nasopharyngeal swabs in infants with cystic fibrosis and healthy controls using shotgun metagenomic sequencing. The impacts of clinical interventions on respiratory microbial function can be identified and experimentally validated using the atlas.