| Summary: | The respiratory tract encounters 10,000 liters of inhaled air every day. Recently, data have emerged on innate lung immunity and key pathways relevant to biomarker detection and therapeutic targeting strategies in acute and chronic respiratory diseases. The lungs serve as the main link between the host and the external environment. Thus, multiple lines of defense protect the host from inhaled potential pathogens. Impaired innate lung immunity can lead to detrimental outcomes such as pneumonia and disseminated infection. Various streptococci are of great ecological importance as part of the normal microbial flora of animals and humans; some of them can also cause diseases that range from subacute to acute or even chronic. Significant human diseases caused by streptococci include scarlet fever, rheumatic heart disease, glomerulonephritis, and pneumococcal pneumonia. Streptococci are essential in industrial and dairy processes and as indicators of contamination. The greatest attention is paid mainly to the species that cause severe infections: S.pyogenes and S. pneumoniae (pneumococci).
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