Nasopharyngeal Microbiome Signature in COVID-19 Positive Patients: Can We Definitively Get a Role to Fusobacterium periodonticum?

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Reviewed Marked as Reviewed by Peace Sandy on 2024-2-10
Citation
PMID PubMed identifier for scientific articles.
DOI Digital object identifier for electronic documents.
URI
Authors
Nardelli C, Gentile I, Setaro M, Di Domenico C, Pinchera B, Buonomo AR, Zappulo E, Scotto R, Scaglione GL, Castaldo G, Capoluongo E
Journal
Frontiers in cellular and infection microbiology
Year
2021
Keywords:
Fusobacterium periodonticum, SARS-CoV-2, microbiota, nasopharyngeal swab, next generation sequencing
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) caused the pandemic Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). This virus is highly transmissible among individuals through both droplets and aerosol leading to determine severe pneumonia. Among the various factors that can influence both the onset of disease and the severity of its complications, the microbiome composition has also been investigated. Recent evidence showed the possible relationship between gut, lung, nasopharyngeal, or oral microbiome and COVID-19, but very little is known about it. Therefore, we aimed to verify the relationships between nasopharyngeal microbiome and the development of either COVID-19 or the severity of symptoms. To this purpose, we analyzed, by next generation sequencing, the hypervariable V1-V2-V3 regions of the bacterial 16S rRNA in nasopharyngeal swabs from SARS-CoV-2 infected patients (n=18) and control (CO) individuals (n=12) using Microbiota solution A (Arrow Diagnostics). We found a significant lower abundance of Proteobacteria and Fusobacteria in COVID-19 patients in respect to CO (p=0.003 and p<0.0001, respectively) from the phylum up to the genus (p<0.001). The Fusobacterium periodonticum (FP) resulted as the most significantly reduced species in COVID-19 patients respect to CO. FP is reported as being able to perform the surface sialylation. Noteworthy, some sialic acids residues on the cell surface could work as additional S protein of SARS-CoV-2 receptors. Consequently, SARS-CoV-2 could use sialic acids as receptors to bind to the epithelium of the respiratory tract, promoting its clustering and the disease development. We can therefore speculate that the significant reduction of FP in COVID-19 patients could be directly or indirectly linked to the modulation of sialic acid metabolism. Finally, viral or environmental factors capable of interfering with sialic metabolism could determine a fall in the individual protection from SARS-CoV-2. Further studies are necessary to clarify the precise role of FP in COVID-19.

Experiment 1


Reviewed Marked as Reviewed by Peace Sandy on 2024-2-10

Curated date: 2021/06/28

Curator: Claregrieve1

Revision editor(s): Claregrieve1, WikiWorks, Peace Sandy

Subjects

Location of subjects
Italy
Host species Species from which microbiome was sampled. Contact us to have more species added.
Homo sapiens
Body site Anatomical site where microbial samples were extracted from according to the Uber Anatomy Ontology
Nasopharynx Nasenrachenraum,Epipharynx,Nasal part of pharynx,Pars nasalis pharyngis,Rhinopharynx,Nasopharynx,nasopharynx
Condition The experimental condition / phenotype studied according to the Experimental Factor Ontology
COVID-19 2019 novel coronavirus,2019 novel coronavirus infection,2019-nCoV,2019-nCoV infection,beta-CoV,beta-CoVs,betacoronavirus,coronavirus disease 2019,SARS-coronavirus 2,SARS-CoV-2,severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2,severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 infectious disease,β-coronavirus,β-CoV,β-CoVs,COVID-19,cOVID-19
Group 0 name Corresponds to the control (unexposed) group for case-control studies
COVID-19 negative controls
Group 1 name Corresponds to the case (exposed) group for case-control studies
COVID-19 positive patients
Group 1 definition Diagnostic criteria applied to define the specific condition / phenotype represented in the case (exposed) group
Symptomatic COVID-19 positive patients
Group 0 sample size Number of subjects in the control (unexposed) group
12
Group 1 sample size Number of subjects in the case (exposed) group
18

Lab analysis

Sequencing type
16S
16S variable region One or more hypervariable region(s) of the bacterial 16S gene
V1-V3
Sequencing platform Manufacturer and experimental platform used for quantifying microbial abundance
Illumina

Statistical Analysis

Data transformation Data transformation applied to microbial abundance measurements prior to differential abundance testing (if any).
relative abundances
Statistical test
Kruskall-Wallis
Significance threshold p-value or FDR threshold used for differential abundance testing (if any)
0.05
MHT correction Have statistical tests be corrected for multiple hypothesis testing (MHT)?
No

Alpha Diversity

Shannon Estimator of species richness and species evenness: more weight on species richness
unchanged
Chao1 Abundance-based estimator of species richness
unchanged
Simpson Estimator of species richness and species evenness: more weight on species evenness
unchanged

Signature 1

Reviewed Marked as Reviewed by Peace Sandy on 2024-2-10

Curated date: 2021/06/28

Curator: Claregrieve1

Revision editor(s): Claregrieve1, Peace Sandy

Source: Figure 3A-F

Description: Nasopaheryngeal microbiome composition in COVID-19 patients and Control group. The graphs show the percentage of relative abundance (%) of the all taxonomic levels from Phylum to Species, obtained by using the MicrobAT Suite - SmartSeq. Each column in the plot represents a group, and each color in the column represents the relative abundance (%) for each taxon. In panel (A) we show the phyla with average relative abundance greater than 1% in all studied groups; we found two phyla significantly less abundant in COVID-19 patients respect to Controls, Proteobacteria, and Fusobacteria. Not statistically significant difference in taxa abundance was observed when T0 and T1 COVID-19 patients were compared. The other panels (B–F) show the taxa abundance from class to up species level significantly different between groups by Kruskal Wallis test. (B) class (C) order, (D) family, (E) genus (F) species. *p < 0.05; **p < 0.001.

Abundance in Group 1: decreased abundance in COVID-19 positive patients

NCBI Quality ControlLinks
Fusobacteriaceae
Fusobacteriales
Fusobacteriota
Fusobacterium
Gammaproteobacteria
Haemophilus
Leptotrichia
Leptotrichiaceae
Pasteurellaceae
Pasteurellales

Revision editor(s): Claregrieve1, Peace Sandy