1
|
Galeana-Cadena D, Ramirez-Martínez G, Alberto Choreño-Parra J, Silva-Herzog E, Margarita Hernández-Cárdenas C, Soberón X, Zúñiga J. Microbiome in the nasopharynx: Insights into the impact of COVID-19 severity. Heliyon 2024; 10:e31562. [PMID: 38826746 PMCID: PMC11141365 DOI: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e31562] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/12/2023] [Revised: 05/15/2024] [Accepted: 05/17/2024] [Indexed: 06/04/2024] Open
Abstract
Background The respiratory tract harbors a variety of microbiota, whose composition and abundance depend on specific site factors, interaction with external factors, and disease. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between COVID-19 severity and the nasopharyngeal microbiome. Methods We conducted a prospective cohort study in Mexico City, collecting nasopharyngeal swabs from 30 COVID-19 patients and 14 healthy volunteers. Microbiome profiling was performed using 16S rRNA gene analysis. Taxonomic assignment, classification, diversity analysis, core microbiome analysis, and statistical analysis were conducted using R packages. Results The microbiome data analysis revealed taxonomic shifts within the nasopharyngeal microbiome in severe COVID-19. Particularly, we observed a significant reduction in the relative abundance of Lawsonella and Cutibacterium genera in critically ill COVID-19 patients (p < 0.001). In contrast, these patients exhibited a marked enrichment of Streptococcus, Actinomyces, Peptostreptococcus, Atopobium, Granulicatella, Mogibacterium, Veillonella, Prevotella_7, Rothia, Gemella, Alloprevotella, and Solobacterium genera (p < 0.01). Analysis of the core microbiome across all samples consistently identified the presence of Staphylococcus, Corynebacterium, and Streptococcus. Conclusions Our study suggests that the disruption of physicochemical conditions and barriers resulting from inflammatory processes and the intubation procedure in critically ill COVID-19 patients may facilitate the colonization and invasion of the nasopharynx by oral microorganisms.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- David Galeana-Cadena
- Laboratorio de Inmunobiología y Genética, Instituto Nacional de Enfermedades Respiratorias Ismael Cosío Villegas (INER), Mexico City, Mexico
- Instituto de Biotecnología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Cuernavaca, Mexico
| | - Gustavo Ramirez-Martínez
- Laboratorio de Inmunobiología y Genética, Instituto Nacional de Enfermedades Respiratorias Ismael Cosío Villegas (INER), Mexico City, Mexico
| | - José Alberto Choreño-Parra
- Laboratorio de Inmunobiología y Genética, Instituto Nacional de Enfermedades Respiratorias Ismael Cosío Villegas (INER), Mexico City, Mexico
| | - Eugenia Silva-Herzog
- Unidad de Vinculación Científica Facultad de Medicina UNAM-INMEGEN, Instituto Nacional de Medicina Genómica (INMEGEN), Mexico City, Mexico
| | - Carmen Margarita Hernández-Cárdenas
- Unidad de Cuidados Intensivos y Dirección General, Instituto Nacional de Enfermedades Respiratorias Ismael Cosío Villegas (INER), Ciudad de México, Mexico
| | - Xavier Soberón
- Instituto de Biotecnología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Cuernavaca, Mexico
| | - Joaquín Zúñiga
- Laboratorio de Inmunobiología y Genética, Instituto Nacional de Enfermedades Respiratorias Ismael Cosío Villegas (INER), Mexico City, Mexico
- Tecnologico de Monterrey, Escuela de Medicina y Ciencias de la Salud, Mexico City, Mexico
| |
Collapse
|
2
|
Aljabr W, Dandachi I, Abbas B, Karkashan A, Al-Amari A, AlShahrani D. Metagenomic next-generation sequencing of nasopharyngeal microbiota in COVID-19 patients with different disease severities. Microbiol Spectr 2024; 12:e0416623. [PMID: 38557102 PMCID: PMC11237758 DOI: 10.1128/spectrum.04166-23] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/10/2023] [Accepted: 02/24/2024] [Indexed: 04/04/2024] Open
Abstract
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, extensive research has been conducted on SARS-COV-2 to elucidate its genome, prognosis, and possible treatments. However, few looked at the microbial markers that could be explored in infected patients and that could predict possible disease severity. The aim of this study is to compare the nasopharyngeal microbiota of healthy subjects, moderate, under medication, and recovered SARS-COV-2 patients. In 2020, 38 nasopharyngeal swabs were collected from 6 healthy subjects, 14 moderates, 10 under medication and 8 recovered SARS-COV-2 patients at the Prince Mohammed Bin Abdulaziz Hospital Riyadh. Metatranscriptomic sequencing was performed using Minion Oxford nanopore sequencing. No significant difference in alpha as well as beta diversity was observed among all four categories. Nevertheless, we have found that Streptococcus spp including Streptococcus pneumoniae and Streptococcus thermophilus were among the top 15 most abundant species detected in COVID-19 patients but not in healthy subjects. The genus Staphylococcus was found to be associated with COVID-19 patients compared to healthy subjects. Furthermore, the abundance of Leptotrichia was significantly higher in healthy subjects compared to recovered patients. Corynebacterium on the other hand, was associated with under-medication patients. Taken together, our study revealed no differences in the overall microbial composition between healthy subjects and COVID-19 patients. Significant differences were seen only at specific taxonomic level. Future studies should explore the nasopharyngeal microbiota between controls and COVID-19 patients while controlling for confounders including age, gender, and comorbidities; since these latter could affect the results and accordingly the interpretation.IMPORTANCEIn this work, no significant difference in the microbial diversity was seen between healthy subjects and COVID-19 patients. Changes in specific taxa including Leptotrichia, Staphylococcus, and Corynebacterium were only observed. Leptotrichia was significantly higher in healthy subjects, whereas Staphylococcus and Corynebacterium were mostly associated with COVID-19, and specifically with under-medication SARS-COV-2 patients, respectively. Although the COVID-19 pandemic has ended, the SARS-COV-2 virus is continuously evolving and the emergence of new variants causing more severe disease should be always kept in mind. Microbial markers in SARS-COV-2 infected patients can be useful in the early suspicion of the disease, predicting clinical outcomes, framing hospital and intensive care unit admission as well as, risk stratification. Data on which microbial marker to tackle is still controversial and more work is needed, hence the importance of this study.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Waleed Aljabr
- Research Center, King Fahad Medical City, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
- Institute of Infection, Veterinary and Ecological Sciences, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom
| | - Iman Dandachi
- Research Center, King Fahad Medical City, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
| | - Basma Abbas
- Department of Biological Sciences, College of Science, University of Jeddah, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
| | - Alaa Karkashan
- Department of Biological Sciences, College of Science, University of Jeddah, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
| | - Ahod Al-Amari
- Department of Basic Medical Sciences, College of Medicine, Dar Al-Uloom University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
| | - Dayel AlShahrani
- Pediatric infectious diseases, King Fahad Medical City, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
| |
Collapse
|
3
|
Siasios P, Giosi E, Ouranos K, Christoforidi M, Dimopoulou I, Leshi E, Exindari M, Anastassopoulou C, Gioula G. Oropharyngeal Microbiome Analysis in Patients with Varying SARS-CoV-2 Infection Severity: A Prospective Cohort Study. J Pers Med 2024; 14:369. [PMID: 38672996 PMCID: PMC11051038 DOI: 10.3390/jpm14040369] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/27/2024] [Revised: 03/16/2024] [Accepted: 03/27/2024] [Indexed: 04/28/2024] Open
Abstract
Patients with COVID-19 infection have distinct oropharyngeal microbiota composition and diversity metrics according to disease severity. However, these findings are not consistent across the literature. We conducted a multicenter, prospective study in patients with COVID-19 requiring outpatient versus inpatient management to explore the microbial abundance of taxa at the phylum, family, genus, and species level, and we utilized alpha and beta diversity indices to further describe our findings. We collected oropharyngeal washing specimens at the time of study entry, which coincided with the COVID-19 diagnosis, to conduct all analyses. We included 43 patients in the study, of whom 16 were managed as outpatients and 27 required hospitalization. Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Saccharibacteria TM7, Fusobacteria, and Spirochaetes were the most abundant phyla among patients, while 61 different families were detected, of which the Streptococcaceae and Staphylococcaceae families were the most predominant. A total of 132 microbial genera were detected, with Streptococcus being the predominant genus in outpatients, in contrast to hospitalized patients, in whom the Staphylococcus genus was predominant. LeFSe analysis identified 57 microbial species in the oropharyngeal washings of study participants that could discriminate the severity of symptoms of COVID-19 infections. Alpha diversity analysis did not reveal a difference in the abundance of bacterial species between the groups, but beta diversity analysis established distinct microbial communities between inpatients and outpatients. Our study provides information on the complex association between the oropharyngeal microbiota and SARS-CoV-2 infection. Although our study cannot establish causation, knowledge of specific taxonomic changes with increasing SARS-CoV-2 infection severity can provide us with novel clues for the prognostic classification of COVID-19 patients.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Panagiotis Siasios
- Microbiology Department, School of Medicine, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 54124 Thessaloniki, Greece; (P.S.); (E.G.); (M.C.); (I.D.); (E.L.); (M.E.); (G.G.)
| | - Evangelia Giosi
- Microbiology Department, School of Medicine, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 54124 Thessaloniki, Greece; (P.S.); (E.G.); (M.C.); (I.D.); (E.L.); (M.E.); (G.G.)
| | - Konstantinos Ouranos
- Department of Medicine, Houston Methodist Research Institute, Houston, TX 77030, USA
| | - Maria Christoforidi
- Microbiology Department, School of Medicine, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 54124 Thessaloniki, Greece; (P.S.); (E.G.); (M.C.); (I.D.); (E.L.); (M.E.); (G.G.)
| | - Ifigenia Dimopoulou
- Microbiology Department, School of Medicine, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 54124 Thessaloniki, Greece; (P.S.); (E.G.); (M.C.); (I.D.); (E.L.); (M.E.); (G.G.)
| | - Enada Leshi
- Microbiology Department, School of Medicine, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 54124 Thessaloniki, Greece; (P.S.); (E.G.); (M.C.); (I.D.); (E.L.); (M.E.); (G.G.)
| | - Maria Exindari
- Microbiology Department, School of Medicine, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 54124 Thessaloniki, Greece; (P.S.); (E.G.); (M.C.); (I.D.); (E.L.); (M.E.); (G.G.)
| | - Cleo Anastassopoulou
- Department of Microbiology, Medical School, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, 11527 Athens, Greece;
| | - Georgia Gioula
- Microbiology Department, School of Medicine, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 54124 Thessaloniki, Greece; (P.S.); (E.G.); (M.C.); (I.D.); (E.L.); (M.E.); (G.G.)
| |
Collapse
|
4
|
Zhang J, Zhang Y, Xia Y, Sun J. Microbiome and intestinal pathophysiology in post-acute sequelae of COVID-19. Genes Dis 2023; 11:S2352-3042(23)00223-4. [PMID: 37362775 PMCID: PMC10278891 DOI: 10.1016/j.gendis.2023.03.034] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/04/2023] [Revised: 03/14/2023] [Accepted: 03/29/2023] [Indexed: 06/28/2023] Open
Abstract
Long COVID, also known for post-acute sequelae of COVID-19, describes the people who have the signs and symptoms that continue or develop after the acute COVID-19 phase. Long COVID patients suffer from an inflammation or host responses towards the virus approximately 4 weeks after initial infection with the SARS CoV-2 virus and continue for an uncharacterized duration. Anyone infected with COVID-19 before could experience long-COVID conditions, including the patients who were infected with SARS CoV-2 virus confirmed by tests and those who never knew they had an infection early. People with long COVID may experience health problems from different types and combinations of symptoms over time, such as fatigue, dyspnea, cognitive impairments, and gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms (e.g., nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, decreased or loss of appetite, abdominal pain, and dysgeusia). The critical role of the microbiome in these GI symptoms and long COVID were reported in clinical patients and experimental models. Here, we provide an overall view of the critical role of the GI tract and microbiome in the development of long COVID, including the clinical GI symptoms in patients, dysbiosis, viral-microbiome interactions, barrier function, and inflammatory bowel disease patients with long COVID. We highlight the potential mechanisms and possible treatment based on GI health and microbiome. Finally, we discuss challenges and future direction in the long COVID clinic and research.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Jilei Zhang
- Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Department of Medicine, University of Illinois Chicago, IL 60612, USA
| | - Yongguo Zhang
- Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Department of Medicine, University of Illinois Chicago, IL 60612, USA
| | - Yinglin Xia
- Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Department of Medicine, University of Illinois Chicago, IL 60612, USA
| | - Jun Sun
- Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Department of Medicine, University of Illinois Chicago, IL 60612, USA
- UIC Cancer Center, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Illinois Chicago, Chicago, IL 60612, USA
- Jesse Brown VA Medical Center, Chicago, IL 60612, USA
| |
Collapse
|
5
|
Principi N, Autore G, Ramundo G, Esposito S. Epidemiology of Respiratory Infections during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Viruses 2023; 15:v15051160. [PMID: 37243246 DOI: 10.3390/v15051160] [Citation(s) in RCA: 22] [Impact Index Per Article: 22.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/19/2023] [Revised: 05/04/2023] [Accepted: 05/08/2023] [Indexed: 05/28/2023] Open
Abstract
To face the COVID-19 outbreak, a wide range of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) aimed at limiting the spread of the virus in communities, such as mask-wearing, hand hygiene, social distancing, travel restrictions, and school closures, were introduced in most countries. Thereafter, a significant reduction of new asymptomatic and symptomatic COVID-19 cases occurred, although there were differences between countries according to the type and duration of the NPIs. In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic has been accompanied by significant variations in the global incidence of diseases due to the most common non-SARS-CoV-2 respiratory viruses and some bacteria. In this narrative review, the epidemiology of the most common non-SARS-CoV-2 respiratory infections during the COVID-19 pandemic is detailed. Moreover, factors that could have had a role in modifying the traditional circulation of respiratory pathogens are discussed. A literature analysis shows that NPIs were the most important cause of the general reduction in the incidence of influenza and respiratory syncytial virus infection in the first year of the pandemic, although the different sensitivity of each virus to NPIs, the type and duration of measures used, as well as the interference among viruses may have played a role in modulating viral circulation. Reasons for the increase in the incidences of Streptococcus pneumoniae and group A Streptococcus infections seem strictly linked to immunity debt and the role played by NPIs in reducing viral infections and limiting bacterial superimposed infections. These results highlight the importance of NPIs during pandemics, the need to monitor the circulation of infectious agents that cause diseases similar to those caused by pandemic agents, and the need to make efforts to improve coverage with available vaccines.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
| | - Giovanni Autore
- Pediatric Clinic, Pietro Barilla Children's Hospital, Department of Medicine and Surgery, University Hospital of Parma, 43126 Parma, Italy
| | - Greta Ramundo
- Pediatric Clinic, Pietro Barilla Children's Hospital, Department of Medicine and Surgery, University Hospital of Parma, 43126 Parma, Italy
| | - Susanna Esposito
- Pediatric Clinic, Pietro Barilla Children's Hospital, Department of Medicine and Surgery, University Hospital of Parma, 43126 Parma, Italy
| |
Collapse
|