SYMBIOTIC SHIFT. “The traditional question ‘Is this microbe a pathogen?’ is gradually giving way to the question ‘Under what ecological conditions is this microbe likely to become a pathogen?’. This shift is partly being prompted by the discovery that microbes thought to be engaged in commensal or mutualistic relations with their host can become pathogenic (i.e. parasitic) as a result of changes in the host environment (this is the case for the microbes that make up the normal microbiota of the human gut, for instance).’
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