Allergic Patients with Long-Term Asthma Display Low Levels of Bifidobacterium adolescentis

Arancha Hevia, Christian Milani, Patricia López, Carmen D Donado, Adriana Cuervo, Sonia González, Ana Suárez, Francesca Turroni, Miguel Gueimonde, Marco Ventura, Borja Sánchez, Abelardo Margolles, Arancha Hevia, Christian Milani, Patricia López, Carmen D Donado, Adriana Cuervo, Sonia González, Ana Suárez, Francesca Turroni, Miguel Gueimonde, Marco Ventura, Borja Sánchez, Abelardo Margolles

Abstract

Accumulated evidence suggests a relationship between specific allergic processes, such as atopic eczema in children, and an aberrant fecal microbiota. However, little is known about the complete microbiota profile of adult individuals suffering from asthma. We determined the fecal microbiota in 21 adult patients suffering allergic asthma (age 39.43 ± 10.98 years old) and compare it with the fecal microbiota of 22 healthy controls (age 39.29 ± 9.21 years old) using culture independent techniques. An Ion-Torrent 16S rRNA gene-based amplification and sequencing protocol was used to determine the fecal microbiota profile of the individuals. Sequence microbiota analysis showed that the microbial alpha-diversity was not significantly different between healthy and allergic individuals and no clear clustering of the samples was obtained using an unsupervised principal component analysis. However, the analysis of specific bacterial groups allowed us to detect significantly lower levels of bifidobacteria in patients with long-term asthma. Also, in allergic individuals the Bifidobacterium adolescentis species prevailed within the bifidobacterial population. The reduction in the levels on bifidobacteria in patients with long-term asthma suggests a new target in allergy research and opens possibilities for the therapeutic modulation of the gut microbiota in this group of patients.

Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1. Aggregate microbiota composition in faecal…
Fig 1. Aggregate microbiota composition in faecal samples from healthy controls and allergic asthma patients at phylum level (panel a), family level (panel b) and genus level (panel c).
In panels b and c only taxonomic groups above 0.5% are shown.
Fig 2. Principal Component Analysis using the…
Fig 2. Principal Component Analysis using the 16S rRNA metagenomic profiles and the genus level.
Presence/absence of asthma was further included as metadata. (Green squares: healthy controls; blue circles: asthmatic patients).
Fig 3. Correlation between the time of…
Fig 3. Correlation between the time of asthma ailment and the abundance of bifidobacteria (A) and B. adolescentis (B) in allergic asthma patients.

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