Vital Members in the More Dysbiotic Oropharyngeal Microbiotas in H7N9-Infected Patients.

Hua Zha,Yanmeng Lu,Qiangqiang Wang,Kevin Chang,Hua Zhang,Haifeng Lu,Lanjuan Li,Jinyou Li,Qixia Luo,Jieyun Wu

doi:10.3389/fmed.2020.00396

Abstract

The dysbiosis of oropharyngeal (OP) microbiota is associated with multiple diseases, including H7N9 infection. Different OP microbial colonization states may reflect different severities or stages of disease and affect the effectiveness of the treatments. Current study aims to determine the vital bacteria that could possibly drive the OP microbiota in the H7N9 patients to more severe microbial dysbiosis state. The OP microbiotas of 42 H7N9 patients and 30 healthy subjects were analyzed by a series of bioinformatics and statistical analyses. Two clusters of OP microbiotas in H7N9 patients, i.e., Cluster_1_Diseased and Cluster_2_Diseased, were determined at two microbial colonization states by Partition Around Medoids (PAM) clustering analysis, each characterized by distinct operational taxonomic units (OTUs) and functional metabolites. Cluster_1_Diseased was determined at more severe dysbiosis status compared with Cluster_2_Diseased, while OTU143_Capnocytophaga and OTU269_Treponema acted as gatekeepers for both of the two clustered microbiotas. Nine OTUs assigned to seven taxa, i.e., Alloprevotella, Atopobium, Megasphaera, Oribacterium, Prevotella, Stomatobaculum, and Veillonella, were associated with both H7N9 patients with and without secondary bacterial lung infection in Cluster_1. In addition, two groups of healthy cohorts may have potential different susceptibilities to H7N9 infection. These findings suggest that two OP microbial colonization states of H7N9 patients were at different dysbiosis states, which may help determine the health status of H7N9 patients, as well as the susceptibility of healthy subjects to H7N9 infection.

Highlights

Avian influenza has caused great mortalities to human beings and animals during the last two decades [1,2,3,4]
There is a lack of research on the microbiotas in H7N9 patients [10, 43]
Different microbial colonization states have been determined on the affected tissues or organs of diseased cohorts [16,17,18]

Summary

Introduction

Avian influenza has caused great mortalities to human beings and animals during the last two decades [1,2,3,4]. The highly pathogenic avian influenza A H7N9 virus emerged in eastern China in 2013 [5, 6]. This virus has resulted in severe illness in the infected patients, including pneumonia and acute respiratory distress syndrome, with significant intensive care unit admission and a high case-fatality rate of 39% from 2013 to 2018 [7, 8]. Oropharynx acts as one key gatekeeper of human airway [11] and the dysbiosis of oropharyngeal (OP) microbiotas are associated with multiple diseases [12,13,14,15]. Whether some bacteria could possibly contribute to the worse OP microbial colonization state(s) in both H7N9_SBLI or H7N9_NSI needs further investigations

Methods

Results

Conclusion