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. 2021 May 15;13(5):1682.
doi: 10.3390/nu13051682.

A Combined Analysis of Gut and Skin Microbiota in Infants with Food Allergy and Atopic Dermatitis: A Pilot Study

Ewa Łoś-Rycharska  1 , Marcin Gołębiewski  2   3 , Marcin Sikora  3 , Tomasz Grzybowski  4 , Marta Gorzkiewicz  4 , Maria Popielarz  1 , Julia Gawryjołek  1 , Aneta Krogulska  1
Affiliations

A Combined Analysis of Gut and Skin Microbiota in Infants with Food Allergy and Atopic Dermatitis: A Pilot Study

Ewa Łoś-Rycharska et al. Nutrients. .

Abstract

The gut microbiota in patients with food allergy, and the skin microbiota in atopic dermatitis patients differ from those of healthy people. We hypothesize that relationships may exist between gut and skin microbiota in patients with allergies. The aim of this study was to determine the possible relationship between gut and skin microbiota in patients with allergies, hence simultaneous analysis of the two compartments of microbiota was performed in infants with and without allergic symptoms. Fifty-nine infants with food allergy and/or atopic dermatitis and 28 healthy children were enrolled in the study. The skin and gut microbiota were evaluated using 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing. No significant differences in the α-diversity of dermal or fecal microbiota were observed between allergic and non-allergic infants; however, a significant relationship was found between bacterial community structure and allergy phenotypes, especially in the fecal samples. Certain clinical conditions were associated with characteristic bacterial taxa in the skin and gut microbiota. Positive correlations were found between skin and fecal samples in the abundance of Gemella among allergic infants, and Lactobacillus and Bacteroides among healthy infants. Although infants with allergies and healthy infants demonstrate microbiota with similar α-diversity, some differences in β-diversity and bacterial species abundance can be seen, which may depend on the phenotype of the allergy. For some organisms, their abundance in skin and feces samples may be correlated, and these correlations might serve as indicators of the host's allergic state.

Keywords: 16S rRNA sequencing; atopic dermatitis; dysbiosis; food allergy; gut; infants; microbiota; skin.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Study design. Flow chart depicting steps involved in patient selection and tests in this study.
Figure 2
Figure 2
α-diversity of feces and skin microbiota in infants with FA, AD and ADFA. F—feces, S—skin, FA—food allergy, AD—atopic dermatitis, ADFA—atopis dermatitis and food allergy, C—control group. (A) Shannon’s diversity index (H’), (B) Observed number of OTUs, (C) Shannon’s evenness (E).
Figure 3
Figure 3
(A,B). β-diversity of fecal and skin microbiota in the studied groups. β-diversity: distance based redundancy analysis (db RDA) on unweighted distance metrices calculated on rarified community data for: A—feces, B—skin, 95% confidence elapses for show significance of grouping according to clinical status was tested FA—food allergy group, AD—atopic dermatitis group, ADFA—atopic dermatitis and food allergy group, C—control group.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Taxonomic composition: (A). phyla level, (B). class level, (C) order level, (D). family level, (E). genus level in feces and skin microbiota of the studied children. F-FA—feces in food allergy group, F-AD—feces in atopic dermatitis group, F-ADFA—feces in atopic dermatitis and food allergy group, F-C—feces in control group, S-FA–skin in food allergy group, S-AD—skin in atopic dermatitis group, S-ADFA—skin in atopic dermatitis and food allergy group, S-C—skin in control group.
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