Characteristics of the Tongue Coating Microbiome in Patients Infected With Adenovirus

Abstract

Background: Adenovirus(AdV) infection, which distributes globally when regional epidemics are reported throughout the year, has no specific treatment yet. As the significance of the oral microbiome has been increasingly recognized in virus infection, this study aims to explore the characteristics of the tongue coating microbiome in AdV infected patients for the first time. Methods: 26 patients with AdV infection and 34 matched healthy controls were enrolled to collect tongue coating samples for 16S rRNA gene sequencing. Information on the tongue coating microbiome was annotated by the Human Oral Microbiome Database(HOMD). Results: The characteristics of AdV infection include decreased abundance and evenness of microbiome among individuals (p<0.001) and significant differences in the relative abundance at different levels (phylum, class, order, family, genus) (p<0.05), compared with the control group. It should be noted that the combination of 3 genera, including Neisseria, Fusobacterium and Haemophilus, can be used as potential biomarkers to accurately distinguish AdV infection from controls (AUC:0.9714). In addition, Neisseria and Haemophilus were also associated with platelet, AST and CRE. Fifteen KEGG pathways were found associated with AdV infection which was closely related to three biomarkers, with transporters the most important functional module. Conclusions: This study described the characteristics of tongue coating microbiome of ADV infection, provided not only new evidence for the biomarkers and pathways associated with AdV infection, but also novel insights into pathogenesis, prevention and treatment of AdV infections as well. Funding Statement: This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (nos. 81673806), Emergency Scientific Research Project of Beijing administration of traditional Chinese medicine(nos.YJ2020-03), Emergency Research Project (nos.BWS20J006), Medical Research Program(CX19015) and Bio-safety Construction Plan (nos.A3704041902-02). Declaration of Interests: The authors report no conflict of interest, and no commercial or other association that might pose a conflict of interest (e.g., pharmaceutical stock ownership, consultancy, advisory board membership, relevant patents, or research funding). Ethics Approval Statement: The study complied with the Ethical Principles of the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki and experimental protocols were approved by the committee on ethics of the 5th Medical Centre of Chinese PLA General Hospital (formerly the 302 Military Hospital).