Longitudinal dynamics of the nasopharyngal microbiome in response to SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant and HIV infection in Kenyan women and their infants

TL;DR

This study examines how the nasal microbiome of Kenyan women and infants responds to SARS-CoV-2 Omicron and HIV over time, finding it remains stable despite infection.

Contribution

The study provides new insights into the resilience of the nasopharyngeal microbiome to SARS-CoV-2 and HIV in a longitudinal cohort in Kenya.

Findings

Mothers and infants had significantly different microbiome composition and bacterial load.

The nasopharyngeal microbiome did not change before and after SARS-CoV-2 infection.

HIV exposure did not significantly alter the microbiome's response to SARS-CoV-2.

Abstract

The nasopharynx and its microbiota are implicated in respiratory health and disease. The interplay between viral infection and the nasopharyngeal microbiome is an area of increased interest and of clinical relevance. The impact of SARS-CoV-2, the etiological agent of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, on the nasopharyngeal microbiome, particularly among individuals living with HIV, is not fully characterized. Here we describe the nasopharyngeal microbiome before, during and after SARS-CoV-2 infection in a longitudinal cohort of Kenyan women (21 living with HIV and 14 HIV-uninfected) and their infants (18 HIV-exposed, uninfected and 18 HIV-unexposed, uninfected), followed between September 2021 through March 2022. We show using genomic epidemiology that mother and infant dyads were infected with the same strain of the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant that spread rapidly across Kenya. Additionally, we used metagenomic sequencing to characterize the nasopharyngeal microbiome of 20 women and infants infected with SARS-CoV-2, 6 infants negative for SARS-CoV-2 but experiencing respiratory symptoms, and 34 timepoint matched SARS-CoV-2 negative mothers and infants. Since individuals were sampled longitudinally before and after SARS-CoV-2 infection, we could characterize the short- and long-term impact of SARS-CoV-2 infection on the nasopharyngeal microbiome. We found that mothers and infants had significantly different microbiome composition and bacterial load (p-values <.0001). However, in both mothers and infants, the nasopharyngeal microbiome did not differ before and after SARS-CoV-2 infection, regardless of HIV-exposure status. Our results indicate that the nasopharyngeal microbiome is resilient to SARS-CoV-2 infection and was not significantly modified by HIV.

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