Analysis of the nasal vestibule mycobiome in patients with allergic rhinitis

Abstract

Advances in culture-independent sequencing methods have been utilised in recent studies to understand the phylogenetic composition of the human microbiome of healthy and diseased skin. Allergic rhinitis (AR) is an inflammatory condition of the nasal cavity caused by environmental allergens. Although nasal microbial communities have been considered important contributors in human health, no studies to date have comprehensively compared fungal communities (mycobiome) of the nasal vestibule using the culture-independent pyrosequencing method. This study aimed to investigate how fungal communities of the nasal vestibule skin surface are influenced by AR. The phylogenetic composition of the nasal vestibule mycobiome of patients with AR was analysed by culture-independent pyrosequencing methods and compared with healthy individuals. A total of 69 fungal genera were identified from both AR samples and healthy controls, and the genus Malassezia predominated in the nasal vestibule. Species-level analysis classified eight different Malassezia species including M. pachydermatis and M. cuniculi, which were normally isolated from animals, and revealed M. restricta to be the most abundant species in the nasal vestibule. Although high interpersonal variation was observed, some of the AR samples displayed significantly higher diversities than healthy controls at both the genus and species level.