Anellovirus in Asthma

Abstract

Background and objectives: Bronchial asthma is a common respiratory illness with incompletely understood pathophysiology. However, the respiratory virome has been linked to asthma development. This study aimed to analyse the anellovirus related metagenomic data from both asthmatic and healthy subjects to characterise the anelloviral community and discern the possible association between anelloviruses and bronchial asthma. Methods: Total nucleic acid was extracted from clinical samples and the resulting pooled nucleic acids were used as input for a single sequencing library. Libraries were sequenced on the Illumina HiSeq or the MiSeq platforms. Shannon diversity, inverse Simpson, Shannon equitability, Jaccard similarity and Sorensen similarity indices were calculated for anellovirus sequence data to address alpha and beta diversity. Results: Twenty-four anellovirus species were identified in the two clinical groups; twelve of them were exclusively detected in asthmatic samples while only two were exclusively detected in the healthy samples. Torque teno virus was the most prevalent anellovirus species in both groups. Relative frequency of occurrence, relative abundance and alpha diversity of anelloviruses showed no differences between asthmatic and healthy samples. However, the beta diversity of anellovirus species in asthmatic samples was significantly more dissimilar than in the healthy samples. Conclusion: There is an altered anelloviral community in stable bronchial asthma, suggesting an association between anelloviral dysbiosis and asthma pathogenesis. Further studies are needed to fully understand the role of anelloviruses in bronchial asthma development.