A new study has shed light on hereditary angioedema (HAE)-associated throat microbiota and found a correlation between attack severity and microbial flora.
“The associations between throat microbiomes with laryngeal edema and disease severity in HAE patients may indicate the potential of microbiome-based interventions in the prevention and treatment of HAE episodes,” the study authors said.
HAE patients with recent episodes of laryngeal edema had an increased abundance of Bacteroidetes and Prevotellaceae species compared to patients without recent episodes. Moreover, the relative abundance of Bacteroidetes was positively correlated with HAE attack severity scores, with each 10% increment in the relative abundance of Bacteroidetes being associated with a 4.16-point increase in the HAE severity score.
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Patients with recent gastrointestinal edema also had a slight increase in the relative abundance of Bacteroidetes compared to patients without recent gastrointestinal edema. However, this difference did not achieve statistical significance.
Wang et al did not find any significant alteration in the diversity or structure of the microbial community in patients with recent episodes of skin edema. Moreover, they did not find significant bacterial taxa differences in patients with recent episodes of gastrointestinal or skin edema. The authors defined recent edema as that occurring within the previous month.
Danazol (Danocrine®) treatment did not significantly change the diversity or structure of the microbiota or the bacterial taxa.
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The analysis of throat swab samples from 36 patients with HAE and 17 healthy controls showed a predominance of Firmicutes, Bacteroidetes, Proteobacteria, and Fusobacteria species in the throat microbiome, regardless of group.
The results of this study require extensive experimental validation, as well as validation in multicenter studies with larger sample sizes. Moreover, it would be important to explore the causal relationship between microbiome and edema episodes in future prospective studies, the authors wrote.
Reference
Wang X, Cao Y, Zhi Y. Throat microbiota alterations in patients with hereditary angioedema. World Allergy Organ J. Published online September 28, 2022. doi:10.1016/j.waojou.2022.100694
