Characterization of oral virome and microbiome revealed distinctive microbiome disruptions in paediatric patients with hand, foot and mouth disease

Abstract

While the underlying determinants are unclear, hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD) presents a wide spectrum of clinical manifestations with varying severity in different individuals. Recently, many studies identified the human microbiome as a critical factor in the pathogenesis of various diseases. Therefore, we here investigated the ecological dynamics of the oral microbiome changes during the HFMD infection. After targeted enrichment of all known vertebrate viruses, the virome profiles of symptomatic and asymptomatic HFMD patients were examined and revealed to be significantly altered from those of healthy individuals, with nine discriminative viruses detected. Further characterization of the prokaryotic microbiome revealed an elevated level of Streptococcus sp. as the most important signature of the symptomatic HFMD cohort, positively correlating to the level of enterovirus A RNA. In addition, we found that while coxsackievirus A5 is detected in saliva RNA of all asymptomatic cases, coxsackievirus A6 dominates the majority of the symptomatic cohort.

Synbiotics Supplements Lower the Risk of Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease in Children, Potentially by Providing Resistance to Gut Microbiota Dysbiosis

“…Streptococcus , which is one of the most classic opportunistic pathogens, comprises a wide variety of pathogenic bacterial strains. Streptococcus is one of the most prevalent inhabitants of the respiratory tract ( Engholm et al., 2017 ), skin surface ( Ho et al., 2021 ) and gut ( Sokol et al., 2017 ; Ooi et al., 2018 ) of adults and children. Studies have shown that influenza virus can interact with S. pneumoniae and induce susceptibility to viruses by activating cytokines and dendritic cells ( Short et al., 2012 ).…”

Functional biomes beyond the bacteriome in the oral ecosystem

“…Investigations on the ecological niche of the patients affected with hand foot and mouth disease showed nine discriminative viral species with elevated levels of Streptococcus sp.,. It also correlated with the presence of Enterovirus and Coxsackievirus A5 and A6 together with the altered virome profiles [30] . On the other hand, a healthy human microbiome may be always accustomed with the direct health of the human body.…”

Intestinal microbiota has important effect on severity of hand foot and mouth disease in children

“…In a previous study, Ho et al investigated the ecological dynamics of the oral microbiome changes during the HFMD infection. All known vertebrate viruses in the specimens were under targeted enrichment before the detection of the viruses, and nine discriminative viruses were detected [ 34 ]. Although in Ho’s study, the specimens were from mouths, and in our study, the specimens were from feces, and the viral enrichment can improve the sensitivity of virus detection.…”