The Gut Microbiome of Children during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Bacorn, Mickayla; Romero-Soto, Hector N.; Levy, Shira; Chen, Qing; Hourigan, Suchitra K.

doi:10.3390/microorganisms10122460

Cited by 8 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 223 publications

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“…Thus, although infant age (i.e., development) was the primary driver of changes in infant gut microbes, SARS-CoV-2 infection also had a potentially subtle impact on the infants' bacteria and viruses. These ndings are comparable to a study of infants ≤ 2 years old that found bacterial alpha and beta diversity were not signi cantly in uenced by SARS-CoV-2 50 . Other studies with older children (range 8 days -17 years) showed changes in the bacterial alpha and beta diversity as well as differentiating bacteria 16,51,53 .…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 83%

“…In this study, we investigated how SARS-CoV-2 impacts the gut microbiome of women (both WLHIV and HIV-negative) and their infants. We found that SARS-CoV-2 altered the microbiome; however, the changes we observed were less pronounced than described in several previous studies that found SARS-CoV-2 alters the gut microbiome signi cantly after infection 5,7,13,14,16,17,19,20,[50][51][52][53][54] . This result could be due, in part, to the clinically mild SARS-CoV-2 cases in our study 23 .…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 80%

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Gut virome and microbiome dynamics before and after SARS-CoV-2 infection in women living with HIV and their infants

Maqsood,

Holland,

et al. 2024

Preprint

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Microbiome perturbations can have long-term effects on health. The dynamics of the gut microbiome and virome in women living with HIV (WLHIV) and their newborn infants is poorly understood. Here, we performed metagenomic sequencing analyses on longitudinal stool samples including 23 mothers (13 WLHIV, 10 HIV-negative) and 12 infants that experienced SARS-CoV-2 infection with mild disease, as well as 40 mothers (18 WLHIV, 22 HIV-negative) and 60 infants that remained SARS-CoV-2 seronegative throughout the study follow-up. Regardless of HIV or SARS-CoV-2 status, maternal bacterial and viral profiles were distinct from infants. Using linear mixed effects models, we showed that while the microbiome alpha diversity trajectory was not significantly different between SARS-CoV-2 seropositive and seronegative women. However, seropositive women’s positive trajectory while uninfected was abruptly reversed after SARS-CoV-2 infection (p = 0.015). However, gut virome signatures of women were not associated with SARS-CoV-2. Alterations in infant microbiome and virome diversities were generally not impacted by SARS-CoV-2 but were rather driven by development. We did not find statistically significant interactions between HIV and SARS-CoV-2 on the gut microbiome and virome. Overall, our study provides insights into the complex interplay between maternal and infant bacterial microbiome, virome, and the influence of SARS-CoV-2 and HIV status.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 83%

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 80%

Gut virome and microbiome dynamics before and after SARS-CoV-2 infection in women living with HIV and their infants

Maqsood,

Holland,

et al. 2024

Preprint

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“…The human microbiome is a major factor in the risk of both infectious and chronic diseases [5,[23][24][25]. Given the significance of the microbiome's role in disease prevention and host resistance including against the COVID-19 virus [11,26,27], pandemic risk communication was a stunning failure in its myopic approach and exclusion of the microbiome. Broader risk communication concerning: (1) the use of beneficial microbes as a front-line microbial and immunological defense against life-threatening infections including the COVID-19 virus, and (2) the use of microbiota to dampen excessive inflammation would have enabled the public not only to distinguish among good vs. bad microbes, but would also have facilitated pandemic health strategies beyond just experimental drugs.…”

Section: Clear Risk-benefit Communication With the Public For Self-em...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This deep fear supported public compliance with a series of mandates such as a lockdown of the healthy, mandated mask-wearing in many locations, including schools, parks, beaches, and school closures, restricted gatherings including among family members in many hospitals and/or senior care facilities, travel restrictions, and even restricted sale of vegetable garden seeds in one U.S. state (see [7]). In hindsight, many of the mandates were questionable at best and had as an outcome degradation of the human microbiome [8][9][10][11].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Human Superorganism: Using Microbes for Freedom vs. Fear

Dietert

Dietert²

2023

Applied Microbiology

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Balanced fear supports human rational decision-making and useful behavioral responses. In contrast, overwhelming, persistent, and unbalanced fear can paralyze the individual and result in heightened anxiety, lack of cognitive flexibility, fear-based public compliance and serious mental health issues. Psychobiotics research has established that a healthy microbiome is required for balanced fear and mental health protection via control of fear extinction. The recent COVID-19 pandemic featured daily, persistent, fear-of-a-single-contagion conditioning on a global scale paired with various behavioral mandates (e.g., lockdowns of the healthy, required wearing of face masks in many locations including schools, isolation from environmental microbes and each other through the closure of beaches and parks, and restrictions on social gatherings including access to family members in hospitals and senior-assisted facilities). Such mandates degraded the human microbiome and isolated us from each other and useful environmental microbes. It also ignored the historic role of secondary bacterial pathogens in pandemic deaths. This narrative review examines how the institutional promotion of fear-of-a-single-contagion, lack of balanced risk communication, and appalling disregard of our fundamental nature (as majority-microbial human superorganisms) resulted in problems rather than solutions. This review illustrates that government-public health-media promotion of pervasive fear and microbiome-degrading behaviors: (1) increased public compliance, (2) reduced cognitive flexibility, and (3) increased risk of mental health conditions. However, a portion of the general public chose a healthier path through their increased consumption of microbiome- and immune-supportive supplements and fermented foods during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. For a healthier future, public health must follow the lead of this population to ensure that human freedom, rather than paralyzing fear, dominates our future.

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“…Intestinal inflammation and gut barrier dysfunction as well as microbial translocation trigger changes in the gut microbiome. SARS-CoV-2 in the GI tract results in the release of zonulin, an important coordinator of intercellular tight junctions (TJs) between epithelial cells; higher levels of zonulin increase intestinal permeability (the “leaky gut”), which in turn facilitates trafficking of SARS-CoV-2 antigens in the blood and lymph flow, leading to hyperinflammation and autoimmune phenomena [ 168 , 184 , 185 ], as shown in Figure 2 .…”

Section: The Interplay Between Main Molecular and Cellular Pathogenic...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Infection, Dysbiosis and Inflammation Interplay in the COVID Era in Children

Ailioaie

Litscher³

2023

IJMS

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For over three years, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in children and adolescents has generated repercussions, especially a few weeks after infection, for symptomatic patients who tested positive, for asymptomatic ones, or even just the contacts of an infected person, and evolved from severe forms such as multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) to multifarious clinical manifestations in long COVID (LC). Referred to under the umbrella term LC, the onset of persistent and highly heterogeneous symptoms such as fatigue, post-exertion malaise, cognitive dysfunction, and others have a major impact on the child’s daily quality of life for months. The first aim of this review was to highlight the circumstances of the pathophysiological changes produced by COVID-19 in children and to better understand the hyperinflammation in COVID-19 and how MIS-C, as a life-threatening condition, could have been avoided in some patients. Another goal was to better identify the interplay between infection, dysbiosis, and inflammation at a molecular and cellular level, to better guide scientists, physicians, and pediatricians to advance new lines of medical action to avoid the post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection. The third objective was to identify symptoms and their connection to molecular pathways to recognize LC more easily. The fourth purpose was to connect the triggering factors of LC with related sequelae following acute SARS-CoV-2 injuries to systems and organs, the persistence of the virus, and some of its components in hidden reservoirs, including the gut and the central nervous system. The reactivation of other latent infectious agents in the host’s immune environments, the interaction of this virus with the microbiome, immune hyperactivation, and autoimmunity generated by molecular mimicry between viral agents and host proteins, could initiate a targeted and individualized management. New high-tech solutions, molecules, probiotics, and others should be discovered to innovatively solve the interplay between RNA persistent viruses, microbiota, and our immune system.

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The Gut Microbiome of Children during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Cited by 8 publications

References 223 publications

Gut virome and microbiome dynamics before and after SARS-CoV-2 infection in women living with HIV and their infants

Gut virome and microbiome dynamics before and after SARS-CoV-2 infection in women living with HIV and their infants

The Human Superorganism: Using Microbes for Freedom vs. Fear

Infection, Dysbiosis and Inflammation Interplay in the COVID Era in Children

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