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. 2023 Sep-Oct;33(5):366-370.
doi: 10.4103/ijn.ijn_168_22. Epub 2023 Jul 24.

Blood, Gut, and Oral Microbiome in Kidney Transplant Recipients

Susana Sampaio  1   2   3   4 , Ricardo Araujo  1   2 , Ana Merino-Riba  1   2   5   6   7 , Benjamin Lelouvier  8 , Florence Servant  8 , Janete Quelhas-Santos  1   2   3 , Manuel Pestana  1   2   3   4 , Benedita Sampaio-Maia  1   2   9
Affiliations

Blood, Gut, and Oral Microbiome in Kidney Transplant Recipients

Susana Sampaio et al. Indian J Nephrol. 2023 Sep-Oct.

Abstract

Background and objective: Recent reports describe the existence of a blood microbiome profile not associated with an infection state. Given the high impact that the dysbiotic human microbiome appears to have in chronic kidney disease and, in particular, in the outcome of kidney transplant recipients (KTRs), we aimed to explore the variations and correlations of the gut, oral, and blood microbiome of recipients, 3 months after kidney transplantation.

Materials and methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study where the microbiome of stool, saliva, and blood collected from recipients 3 months after kidney transplantation (N = 6) was analyzed by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification and sequencing of the V3-V4 hypervariable regions of the 16S rRNA gene using MiSeq Illumina® technology.

Results: Blood of KTRs harbors a distinct low-abundance microbiome dominated by Proteobacteria and Firmicutes. Gut and oral microbiome of KTRs also present distinct profiles. The existence of a proportion of shared operational taxonomic units among the different body sites is reported, mainly classified as Proteobacteria and Firmicutes.

Conclusions: This study provides evidence of existence a blood microbiome in KTRs, different from the gut and the oral microbiome profiles, with a small number of operational taxonomic units representing a shared microbiome. The clinical relevance of this observation should be further explored in these patients.

Keywords: Bloodstream; human microbiome; kidney transplant recipients; kidney transplantation; mobile bacteria.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Relative abundance of bacterial taxa at the phylum level in kidney transplant recipients. Taxa are identified by name in the plot for abundance >1%. Taxa are merged into the “Other” category only if they exist in any sample with abundance greater than 0.01%. Taxa are merged into the “Multi-affiliation” category when they can correspond to two or more different taxa
Figure 2
Figure 2
Shared taxa among the gut, oral, and blood samples in kidney transplant recipients. A set of 15 shared OTUs found in the six kidney transplant recipients studied belong to the following represented phyla, with the respective number of OTUs per phyla or family (when higher than 1) given in parentheses. OTU taxonomy (family and respective genus) found in the three habitats of multiple patients are represented in bold. OTU = operational taxonomic unit
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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