childrens airway microbiota modulates effect of azithromycin

ObjectivesHere, we studied the influence of the airway microbiota on the effect of azithromycin treatment during acute episodes of asthma-like symptoms.MethodsChildren from the Copenhagen Studies on Asthma in Childhood 2010 (COPSAC2010) cohort with recurrent asthma-like symptoms aged 12-36 months were randomized during acute episodes to azithromycin or placebo as previously reported. Prior to randomization, hypopharyngeal aspirates were collected and examined by 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing.Measurements and Main ResultsIn 139 airway samples from 68 children, episode duration after randomization was associated with microbiota richness, with 15 individual OTUs (including several Neisseria and Veillonella), and with microbial pneumotypes defined from weighted UniFrac distancesAdditional dataAll data that supports the findings in this study, including clinical data, are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request: Participant-level personally identifiable data are protected under the Danish Data Protection Act and European Regulation 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council (GDPR) that prohibit distribution even in pseudo-anonymized form, but can be made available under a data transfer agreement as a collaboration effort.