Nasopharyngeal microbiome composition associated with Streptococcus pneumoniae colonization suggests a protective role of Corynebacterium in young children.

Lei Xu,Michael E Pichichero,Joshua Earl,Baochuan Lin

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0257207

Lei Xu, Michael E Pichichero + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0257207

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Journal: PloS one	Publication Date: Sep 16, 2021
Citations: 9	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Rochester General Hospital, Drexel University

Abstract

Streptococcus pneumoniae (Spn) is a leading respiratory tract pathogen that colonizes the nasopharynx (NP) through adhesion to epithelial cells and immune evasion. Spn actively interacts with other microbiota in NP but the nature of these interactions are incompletely understood. Using 16S rRNA gene sequencing, we analyzed the microbiota composition in the NP of children with or without Spn colonization. 96 children were included in the study cohort. 74 NP samples were analyzed when children were 6 months old and 85 NP samples were analyzed when children were 12 months old. We found several genera that correlated negatively or positively with Spn colonization, and some of these correlations appeared to be influenced by daycare attendance or other confounding factors such as upper respiratory infection (URI) or Moraxella colonization. Among these genera, Corynebacterium showed a consistent inverse relationship with Spn colonization with little influence by daycare attendance or other factors. We isolated Corynebacterium propinquum and C. pseudodiphtheriticum and found that both inhibited the growth of Spn serotype 22F strain in vitro.

Highlights

Streptococcus pneumoniae (Spn) causes a variety of illnesses, including pneumonia, otitis media, bacteremia, and meningitis [1, 2]
Race, breast-feeding history, exposure to smoke, history of atopy, antibiotic treatment (30 days prior to sample collection), daycare attendance, and presence of siblings were variables that had frequently been examined for their association with Spn colonization and some were reported as risk factors [34,35,36,37,38,39]
We investigated the association between Spn colonization and common respiratory pathogens, clinically-diagnosed viral upper respiratory infection (URI), and proness to acute otitis media (AOM) (Table 2)

Summary

Introduction

Streptococcus pneumoniae (Spn) causes a variety of illnesses, including pneumonia, otitis media, bacteremia, and meningitis [1, 2]. Despite availability of pneumococcal vaccines, Spn remains the most common cause of bacterial infection in the developing world and most frequently infects children under 5 years old or elderly over 65. It was included as one of 12 priority pathogens by WHO in 2017 [3]. Spn colonizes the nasopharynx (NP) of children in the first month of life and 27–65% of children carry Spn asymptomatically [3] It is incompletely understood how Spn progresses from a commensal state to a pathogenic state and eventually invades tissues and blood stream to cause local invasiveness and systemic infections.

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