AUTHOR=Liu Wenxin , Jiang Huier , Liu Xiling , Zheng Yue , Liu Yanan , Pan Fen , Yu Fangyuan , Li Zhi , Gu Meizhen , Du Qingqing , Li Xiaoyan , Zhang Hong , Han Dingding 

TITLE=Altered intestinal microbiota enhances adenoid hypertrophy by disrupting the immune balance

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Immunology

VOLUME=14

YEAR=2023

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/immunology/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2023.1277351

DOI=10.3389/fimmu.2023.1277351

ISSN=1664-3224

ABSTRACT=<sec><title>Introduction</title><p>Adenoid hypertrophy (AH) is a common upper respiratory disorder in children. Disturbances of gut microbiota have been implicated in AH. However, the interplay of alteration of gut microbiome and enlarged adenoids remains elusive.</p></sec><sec><title>Methods</title><p>119 AH children and 100 healthy controls were recruited, and microbiome profiling of fecal samples in participants was performed using 16S rRNA gene sequencing. Fecal microbiome transplantation (FMT) was conducted to verify the effects of gut microbiota on immune response in mice.</p></sec><sec><title>Results</title><p>In AH individuals, only a slight decrease of diversity in bacterial community was found, while significant changes of microbial composition were observed between these two groups. Compared with HCs, decreased abundances of <italic>Akkermansia</italic>, <italic>Oscillospiraceae</italic> and <italic>Eubacterium coprostanoligenes</italic> genera and increased abundances of <italic>Bacteroides</italic>, <italic>Faecalibacterium</italic>, <italic>Ruminococcus gnavus</italic> genera were revealed in AH patients. The abundance of <italic>Bacteroides</italic> remained stable with age in AH children. Notably, a microbial marker panel of 8 OTUs were identified, which discriminated AH from HC individuals with an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.9851 in the discovery set, and verified in the geographically different validation set, achieving an AUC of 0.9782. Furthermore, transfer of mice with fecal microbiota from AH patients dramatically reduced the proportion of Treg subsets within peripheral blood and nasal-associated lymphoid tissue (NALT) and promoted the expansion of Th2 cells in NALT.</p></sec><sec><title>Conclusion</title><p>These findings highlight the effect of the altered gut microbiota in the AH pathogenesis.</p></sec>