Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2024 Aug 2;25(15):8467.
doi: 10.3390/ijms25158467.

Relationship between Respiratory Microbiome and Systemic Inflammatory Markers in COPD: A Pilot Study

Carme Casadevall  1   2   3 , Sara Quero  2   4 , Laura Millares  4   5 , Rosa Faner  2   6 , Borja G Cosío  2   7 , Germán Peces-Barba  2   8 , Ady Castro-Acosta  9 , Concepción Montón  4   10 , Alexandre Palou  7 , Sergi Pascual-Guardia  1   11 , Alvar Agustí  2   6 , Joaquim Gea  1   2   3   11 , Eduard Monsó  4 , On Behalf Of The Biomepoc Group
Affiliations

Relationship between Respiratory Microbiome and Systemic Inflammatory Markers in COPD: A Pilot Study

Carme Casadevall et al. Int J Mol Sci. .

Abstract

The respiratory microbiome may influence the development and progression of COPD by modulating local immune and inflammatory events. We aimed to investigate whether relative changes in respiratory bacterial abundance are also associated with systemic inflammation, and explore their relationship with the main clinical COPD phenotypes. Multiplex analysis of inflammatory markers and transcript eosinophil-related markers were analyzed on peripheral blood in a cohort of stable COPD patients (n = 72). Respiratory microbiome composition was analyzed by 16S rRNA microbial sequencing on spontaneous sputum. Spearman correlations were applied to test the relationship between the microbiome composition and systemic inflammation. The concentration of the plasma IL-8 showed an inverted correlation with the relative abundance of 17 bacterial genera in the whole COPD cohort. COPD patients categorized as eosinophilic showed positive relationships with blood eosinophil markers and inversely correlated with the degree of airway obstruction and the number of exacerbations during the previous year. COPD patients categorized as frequent exacerbators were enriched with the bacterial genera Pseudomonas which, in turn, was positively associated with the severity of airflow limitation and the prior year's exacerbation history. The associative relationships of the sputum microbiome with the severity of the disease emphasize the relevance of the interaction between the respiratory microbiota and systemic inflammation.

Keywords: COPD; eosinophils; frequent exacerbators; respiratory microbiome; systemic inflammation.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Most representative significant negative (blue) correlations between blood inflammatory markers and the relative abundance of bacterial genera. Bubble size represents the Spearman’s Rank correlation coefficient and the intensity of bubble color represents the p value.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Relative abundance of bacterial genera with significant differences between IE and FE COPD patients. Data are presented as individual data points with median as a red line and IQR as black lines where * is p < 0.05.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Relationships between the relative abundance of Pseudomonas with lung function and the number of exacerbations during the previous year.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Protein levels of circulating inflammatory markers with significant differences between Non-EOS and EOS patients. Data are presented as individual data points with median as a red line and IQR as black lines. *, p < 0.05: **, p < 0.01.
Figure 5
Figure 5
(a) Relative expression of eight eosinophil-related gene transcripts with significant differences between Non-EOS and EOS patients. Data are presented as individual data points with median (red line) and IQR (black lines). (b) Most representative direct (red) correlations between the level of eosinophilic-related gene transcripts and blood eosinophil counts with the relative abundance of bacterial genera. Bubble size represents the correlation coefficient and the intensity of bubble color represents the p value. (c) Relative abundance of Porphyromonas in EOS and Non-EOS COPD patients. (d) Spearman’s Rank correlation of relative abundance of Mogibacterium with the number of exacerbations during the previous year. Significances: *, p < 0.05; **, p < 0.01; ***, p < 0.001.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Segal L.N., Martinez F.J. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease subpopulations and phenotyping. J. Allergy Clin. Immunol. 2018;141:1961–1971. doi: 10.1016/j.jaci.2018.02.035. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Corlateanu A., Mendez Y., Wang Y., Garnica R.d.J.A., Botnaru V., Siafakas N. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and phenotypes: A state-of-the-art. Pulmonology. 2020;26:95–100. doi: 10.1016/j.pulmoe.2019.10.006. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Barnes P.J. Inflammatory endotypes in COPD. Allergy. 2019;74:1249–1256. doi: 10.1111/all.13760. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Wypych T.P., Wickramasinghe L.C., Marsland B.J. The influence of the microbiome on respiratory health. Nat. Immunol. 2019;20:1279–1290. doi: 10.1038/s41590-019-0451-9. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Ramsheh M.Y., Haldar K., Esteve-Codina A., Purser L.F., Richardson M., Müller-Quernheim J., Greulich T., Nowinski A., Barta I., Stendardo M., et al. Lung microbiome composition and bronchial epithelial gene expression in patients with COPD versus healthy individuals: A bacterial 16S rRNA gene sequencing and host transcriptomic analysis. Lancet Microbe. 2021;2:e300–e310. doi: 10.1016/S2666-5247(21)00035-5. - DOI - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources