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. 2022 Mar 4:12:833726.
doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2021.833726. eCollection 2021.

Nasal Microbiome Change During and After Exacerbation in Asthmatic Children

Tsunglin Liu  1 , Cheng-Han Lin  1 , Yi-Lin Chen  2 , Shuen-Lin Jeng  3 , Hui-Ju Tsai  4 , Chung-Liang Ho  2 , Wen-Shuo Kuo  5 , Miao-Hsi Hsieh  5 , Pei-Chi Chen  5 , Lawrence Shih-Hsin Wu  5   6 , Jiu-Yao Wang  5   7   8
Affiliations

Nasal Microbiome Change During and After Exacerbation in Asthmatic Children

Tsunglin Liu et al. Front Microbiol. .

Abstract

Airway and gut microbiota are important in asthma pathogenesis. Although several studies have revealed distinct microbiota in asthmatic airways at baseline compared to healthy controls, limited studies compared microbiota during acute exacerbation (AE) and in the recovery phase (RP) in the same asthmatic children. We aim to investigate association between microbiota and asthma status in children and explore their relationship with clinical features of asthma. We recruited 56 asthmatic children and investigated their nasal, throat, and stool microbiota during AE and in the RP. Totally, 320 samples were subjected to 16S rRNA sequencing. Although the microbial communities were clearly separated by body site, within each site the overall communities during AE and in the RP could not be distinguished. Most nasal microbiota were dominated by only one or two of six bacterial genera. The domination was associated with mite allergy and patient age only during AE but not in the RP. When moving into RP, the relative abundance of Staphylococcus increased while that of Moraxella decreased. Throat and stool microbiota were not associated with most of the clinical features. Interestingly, stool microbiota during AE was associated with ABO blood type and stool microbiota in the RP was associated with frequency of the subsequent exacerbations. In summary, the association between nasal microbiota and mite allergy only during AE suggests an altered local immunity and its interplay with nasal microbes. Our work provides a basis for studying microbes, and prevention or therapeutic strategy in childhood asthma, especially during AE.

Keywords: acute exacerbation; childhood asthma; mite allergy; nasal microbiota; recovery phase.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Un-weighted (left) and weighted (right) principal coordinate analysis of microbiota of asthmatic children colored by (A) body site (nose: green, throat: purple, stool: orange) and (B) asthmatic status (AE, green; RP, orange).
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Clustering of nasal samples (A) in the RP and (B) during AE based on genus level composition.
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
(A) Changes of microbial compositions in nasal samples moving from AE (top) into RP (bottom). (B) Transitions between microbial clusters from AE into RP. Expected number of self-transitions and the 95% interval are calculated assuming random transitions as described by Teo et al. (2015).
FIGURE 4
FIGURE 4
Weighted beta diversity of nasal samples during AE grouped by (A) IgE class and (B) dust mite allergy. *p < 0.05.
FIGURE 5
FIGURE 5
Changes of microbial compositions in (A) throat and (B) stool samples moving from AE (top) into RP (bottom).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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