Nasal microbiota and symptom persistence in acute respiratory tract infections in infants

Neumann, Roland P.; Hilty, Markus; Xu, Binbin; Usemann, Jakob; Korten, Insa; Mika, Moana; Müller, Loretta; Latzin, Philipp; Frey, Urs

HRV/EV detection was higher in the Moraxellaceae-dominated cluster B1. This is consistent with published observations. KORTEN et al. [7] reported a higher abundance of Moraxellaceae in infants with symptomatic HRV/EV infections. KLOEPFER et al. [24] found similarly increased detection rates of M. catarrhalis and S. pneumoniae associated with HRV/EV. BOSCH et al. [19] found the more frequent ARI in infants with a premature predominance of Moraxellaceae. The strength of the study is the relatively high number of infants studied from a prospective birth cohort with comprehensive information on antenatal and postnatal history, including weekly telephone interviews to monitor respiratory symptoms [20] . However, due to the high variability of the microbiota, it is possible that significant differences in the bacterial composition associated with certain viruses and host factors could only become obvious with an even larger study sample. A limitation of our study is that the age at onset of ARI naturally varied, since the focus of this prospective study was to study the very first symptomatic ARI in infants. Our study design precludes information on the nasal microbiota in an asymptomatic period immediately prior to the first ARI. Additional information on this could help identify changes in the bacterial composition which might have preceded symptoms of the ARI.