Abstract
BackgroundFungal and bacterial microbiota play an important role in development of asthma. We aim to characterize airway microbiome (mycobiome, bacteriome) and functional genes in asthmatics and controls.MethodsSputum microbiome of controls, untreated asthma patients and inhaled corticosteroid (ICS) receiving patients was detected using high throughput sequencing. Metagenomic sequencing was used to examine the functional genes of microbiome.Results1. Mycobiome: α diversity was lower in untreated asthma group than that in controls. Mycobiome compositions differed among the three groups. Compared with controls, untreated asthma group has higher abundance of Wallemia, Mortierella and Fusarium. Compared with untreated asthma patients, ICS receiving patients has higher abundance of Fusarium and Mortierella, lower frequency of Wallemia, Alternaria and Aspergillus. 2. Bacteriome: α diversity was lower in untreated asthma group than that in controls. There are some overlaps of bacteriome compositions between controls and untreated asthma patients which were distinct from ICS receiving patients. Untreated asthma group has higher Streptococcus than controls. 3. Potential fungal and bacterial biomarkers of asthma: Trametes, Aspergillus, Streptococcus, Gemella, Neisseria, etc. 4. Correlation network: There are dense and homogenous correlations in controls but a dramatically unbalanced network in untreated asthma and ICS receiving patients, which suggested the existence of disease-specific inter-kingdom and intra-kingdom alterations. 5. Metagenomic analysis: functional pathways were associated with the status of asthma, microbiome and functional genes showed different correlations in different environment.ConclusionWe showed mycobiome and bacteriome dysbiosis in asthma featured by alterations in biodiversity, community composition, inter-kingdom and intra-kingdom network. We also observed several functional genes associated with asthma.
Highlights
Asthma is a heterogeneous disease as a result of complex interactions between genetic and environmental factors [1], the definite mechanisms of susceptibility to certain clinicopathological features of the disease remain to be further delineated
We showed mycobiome and bacteriome dysbiosis in asthma featured by alterations in biodiversity, community composition, inter-kingdom and intra-kingdom network
We observed several functional genes associated with asthma
Summary
Asthma is a heterogeneous disease as a result of complex interactions between genetic and environmental factors [1], the definite mechanisms of susceptibility to certain clinicopathological features of the disease remain to be further delineated. Except for the confirmation of significant abundance of Aspergillus in asthmatic patients and its positive association with impaired post-bronchodilator expiratory volume in 1 s based on conventional culture-method [13, 14], only Sharma et al identified airway mycobiome in asthma, they explored the fungal diversity and features in endobronchial brush (EB) and bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) samples from different inflammation phenotypes [15] These results invited the speculation that, in addition to disturbance of bacteriome in unremittingly quiescent balanced lung microbiome, variations of community composition in mycobiome are of vital importance in human susceptibility to asthma. We aim to characterize airway microbiome (mycobiome, bacteriome) and functional genes in asthmatics and controls
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