Grupo de Inmunidad, Inflamación y Cáncer, Departamento de Biología Celular e Histología, Facultad de Biología, Universidad de Murcia, 30100 Murcia, Spain.
Instituto Murciano de Investigación Biosanitaria (IMIB)-Arrixaca, 30120 Murcia, Spain.
Int J Mol Sci. 2023 Feb 18;24(4):4127. doi: 10.3390/ijms24044127.
Functional or compositional perturbations of the microbiome can occur at different sites, of the body and this dysbiosis has been linked to various diseases. Changes in the nasopharyngeal microbiome are associated to patient's susceptibility to multiple viral infections, supporting the idea that the nasopharynx may be playing an important role in health and disease. Most studies on the nasopharyngeal microbiome have focused on a specific period in the lifespan, such as infancy or the old age, or have other limitations such as low sample size. Therefore, detailed studies analyzing the age- and sex-associated changes in the nasopharyngeal microbiome of healthy people across their whole life are essential to understand the relevance of the nasopharynx in the pathogenesis of multiple diseases, particularly viral infections. One hundred twenty nasopharyngeal samples from healthy subjects of all ages and both sexes were analyzed by 16S rRNA sequencing. Nasopharyngeal bacterial alpha diversity did not vary in any case between age or sex groups. Proteobacteria, Firmicutes, Actinobacteria, and Bacteroidetes were the predominant phyla in all the age groups, with several sex-associated. , , , , , , , , , , and were the only 11 bacterial genera that presented significant age-associated differences. Other bacterial genera such as , , , , , , , , , , and appeared in the population with a very high frequency, suggesting that their presence might be biologically relevant. Therefore, in contrast to other anatomical areas such as the gut, bacterial diversity in the nasopharynx of healthy subjects remains stable and resistant to perturbations throughout the whole life and in both sexes. Age-associated abundance changes were observed at phylum, family, and genus levels, as well as several sex-associated changes probably due to the different levels of sex hormones present in both sexes at certain ages. Our results provide a complete and valuable dataset that will be useful for future research aiming for studying the relationship between changes in the nasopharyngeal microbiome and susceptibility to or severity of multiple diseases.
功能或组成的扰动微生物组可以发生在不同的部位，身体和这种生态失调已与各种疾病相关联。鼻咽微生物组的变化与患者对多种病毒感染的易感性有关，支持这样的观点，即鼻咽可能在健康和疾病中发挥重要作用。大多数关于鼻咽微生物组的研究都集中在生命的特定时期，如婴儿期或老年期，或者具有其他限制，如样本量低。因此，详细研究分析健康人群鼻咽微生物组在整个生命过程中的年龄和性别相关变化，对于了解鼻咽在多种疾病发病机制中的相关性至关重要，特别是病毒感染。通过 16S rRNA 测序分析了来自所有年龄和性别健康受试者的 120 个鼻咽样本。在任何情况下，鼻咽细菌 α多样性在年龄或性别组之间都没有变化。在所有年龄组中，变形菌门、厚壁菌门、放线菌门和拟杆菌门是主要的门，有几个与性别相关。 、 、 、 、 、 、 、 、 是仅有的 11 个呈现出与年龄显著相关差异的细菌属。其他细菌属，如 、 、 、 、 、 、 、 、 ，在人群中出现的频率非常高，这表明它们的存在可能具有生物学意义。因此，与其他解剖区域（如肠道）不同，健康受试者的鼻咽细菌多样性在整个生命过程中保持稳定，不受干扰，并且在两性中都是如此。在门、科和属水平上观察到与年龄相关的丰度变化，以及一些可能由于两性在某些年龄时存在不同水平的性激素而与性别相关的变化。我们的研究结果提供了一个完整而有价值的数据集，将有助于未来研究鼻咽微生物组的变化与多种疾病的易感性或严重程度之间的关系。
