Moraxella-dominated pediatric nasopharyngeal microbiota associate with upper respiratory infection and sinusitis

• Published in: PloS one Vol. 16; no. 12; p. e0261179
• Main Authors: McCauley, Kathryn E, DeMuri, Gregory, Lynch, Kole, Fadrosh, Douglas W, Santee, Clark, Nagalingam, Nabeetha N, Wald, Ellen R, Lynch, Susan V
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Public Library of Science 28-12-2021; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Asthma; Asymptomatic; Bacteria; Biology and Life Sciences; Child; Child, Preschool; Children; Children & youth; Clusters; Colony Count, Microbial; Daycare; Diagnosis; Environment; Exposure; Female; Funding; Gastroenterology; Generalized linear models; Health aspects; Health care; Health risks; Humans; Infections; Male; Medicine; Medicine and Health Sciences; Microbiota; Microbiota (Symbiotic organisms); Moraxella; Moraxella - physiology; Moraxellaceae Infections - microbiology; Nasopharynx - microbiology; Pathogens; Pediatrics; People and Places; Phylogeny; Population studies; Populations; Primary care; Principal Component Analysis; Public health; Respiratory tract infection; Respiratory tract infections; Respiratory Tract Infections - microbiology; Risk; rRNA 16S; Sinusitis; Sinusitis - microbiology; Tobacco; Viruses; United States; United States > US; San Francisco California; California
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0261179

Distinct bacterial upper airway microbiota structures have been described in pediatric populations, and relate to risk of respiratory viral infection and, exacerbations of asthma. We hypothesized that distinct nasopharyngeal (NP) microbiota structures exist in pediatric populations, relate to environmental exposures and modify risk of acute sinusitis or upper respiratory infection (URI) in children.
Bacterial 16S rRNA profiles from nasopharyngeal swabs (n = 354) collected longitudinally over a one-year period from 58 children, aged four to seven years, were analyzed and correlated with environmental variables, URI, and sinusitis outcomes.
Variance in nasopharyngeal microbiota composition significantly related to clinical outcomes, participant characteristics and environmental exposures including dominant bacterial genus, season, daycare attendance and tobacco exposure. Four distinct nasopharyngeal microbiota structures (Cluster I-IV) were evident and differed with respect to URI and sinusitis outcomes. These clusters were characteristically either dominated by Moraxella with sparse underlying taxa (Cluster I), comprised of a non-dominated, diverse microbiota (Cluster II), dominated by Alloiococcus/Corynebacterium (Cluster III), or by Haemophilus (Cluster IV). Cluster I was associated with increased risk of URI and sinusitis (RR = 1.18, p = 0.046; RR = 1.25, p = 0.009, respectively) in the population studied.
In a pediatric population, URI and sinusitis associate with the presence of Moraxella-dominated NP microbiota.