Abstract
As a respiratory tract virus, SARS-CoV-2 infected people through contacting with the upper respiratory tract first. Previous studies indicated that microbiota could modulate immune response against pathogen infection. In the present study, we performed metagenomic sequencing of pharyngeal swabs from eleven patients with COVID-19 and eleven Non-COVID-19 patients who had similar symptoms such as fever and cough. Through metagenomic analysis of the above two groups and a healthy group from the public data, there are 6502 species identified in the samples. Specifically, the Pielou index indicated a lower evenness of the microbiota in the COVID-19 group than that in the Non-COVID-19 group. Combined with the linear discriminant analysis (LDA) and the generalized linear model, eighty-one bacterial species were found with increased abundance in the COVID-19 group, where 51 species were enriched more than 8 folds. The top three enriched genera were Streptococcus, Prevotella and Campylobacter containing some opportunistic pathogens. More interestingly, through experiments, we found that two Streptococcus strains, S. suis and S. agalactiae, could stimulate the expression of ACE2 of Vero cells in vitro, which may promote SARS-CoV-2 infection. Therefore, these enriched pathogens in the pharynxes of COVID-19 patients may involve in the virus-host interactions to affect SARS-CoV-2 infection and cause potential secondary bacterial infections through changing the expression of the viral receptor ACE2 and/or modulate the host’s immune system.
Keywords: ACE2; COVID-19; Campylobacter; Metagenome sequencing; Prevotella; Streptococcus.
【저자키워드】 COVID-19, ACE2, Campylobacter, Metagenome sequencing, Prevotella, Streptococcus., 【초록키워드】 SARS-CoV-2, immune response, SARS-COV-2 infection, Infection, Symptom, immune system, in vitro, cough, virus, microbiota, pathogen, Virus-host interactions, Fever, Patient, Virus-host interaction, Pathogens, respiratory tract, Secondary bacterial infections, expression, Bacterial infections, Strains, upper respiratory tract, metagenomic sequencing, Analysis, Campylobacter, Prevotella, COVID-19 patient, Generalized linear model, discriminant analysis, Pharyngeal swab, Previous studies, secondary bacterial infection, Vero cells, COVID-19 group, previous study, receptor ACE2, non-COVID-19 group, Linear Discriminant Analysis, Vero Cell, Streptococcus, Host, Affect, Combined, performed, healthy, indicated, modulate, promote, two group, stimulate, experiments, bacterial specy, metagenomic, patients with COVID-19, 【제목키워드】 linkage, Revealed, Potential,