Objectives: A sense of smell is integral to our everyday life. Olfactory impairment affects ~20% of the population and has been linked to various serious disorders.
More...Objectives: A sense of smell is integral to our everyday life. Olfactory impairment affects ~20% of the population and has been linked to various serious disorders. Microbes in the nasal cavity play a key role in priming the physiology of the olfactory epithelium and maintaining a normal sense of smell by the host. The aim of this study was to explore the link between olfactory dysfunction and nasal microbial communities.
Methods: A total of 162 subjects were recruited for this study from a specialized olfactory dysfunction clinic. Based on their combined threshold, discrimination, and identification (TDI) scores, subjects were placed into one of three groups: anosmia, hyposmia or normosmia. Swabs from the nasal middle meatus were collected from each subject then processed for bacterial 16S rRNA gene sequencing. Sequence data were analysed using the DADA2 pipeline.
Results: No overall differences in bacterial diversity or composition were observed between the three cohorts in this study. However, significant differences between cohorts were observed at the amplicon sequence variant level. The relative abundances of Corynebacterium spp. and sequence variants assigned as Streptococcus were significantly (p < 0.05) reduced in subjects with olfactory loss. After assessing bacterial sequencing data for TDI score categories independently, we observed that subjects with deficiencies in discriminating between smells (based on discrimination scores) had a lower bacterial diversity (p < 0.05).
Conclusions: In this study we describe a potential interplay between olfactory impairment and sinus bacterial composition. While these results are preliminary in nature, potential bacterial biomarkers for olfactory loss were identified. These findings have possible important clinical implications that could help with earlier diagnosis and alternative therapeutic approaches. Less...
| Accession | PRJNA638970 |
| Data Type | Raw sequence reads |
| Scope | Environment |
| Organism | human nasopharyngeal metagenome[Taxonomy ID: 1131769] unclassified sequences; metagenomes; organismal metagenomes; human nasopharyngeal metagenome |
| Submission | Registration date: 11-Jun-2020
University of Auckland |
| Relevance | Medical |
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