Oral microbiota signatures associated with viremia and CD4 recovery in treatment-naïve HIV-1-infected patients

Giulia Nannini; Leandro Di Gloria; Edda Russo; Gaetana Sterrantino; Seble Tekle Kiros; Marco Coppi; Elena Niccolai; Simone Baldi; Matteo Ramazzotti; Vincenzo Di Pilato; Filippo Lagi; Gianluca Bartolucci; Gian Maria Rossolini; Alessandro Bartoloni; Amedeo Amedei

doi:10.1016/j.micinf.2024.105339

Oral microbiota signatures associated with viremia and CD4 recovery in treatment-naïve HIV-1-infected patients

Microbes Infect. 2024 Apr 16:105339. doi: 10.1016/j.micinf.2024.105339. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Department of Experimental and Clinical Medicine, University of Florence, Florence 50134, Italy.
² Department of Biomedical, Experimental and Clinical "Mario Serio", University of Florence, Florence 50134, Italy.
³ Department of Experimental and Clinical Medicine, University of Florence, Florence 50134, Italy; Clinical Microbiology and Virology Unit, Careggi University Hospital, Florence, Italy.
⁴ Department of Surgical Sciences and Integrated Diagnostics, University of Genoa, Genoa, Italy.
⁵ Department of Neurosciences, Psychology, Drug Research and Child Health, University of Florence, Florence 50019, Italy.
⁶ Department of Experimental and Clinical Medicine, University of Florence, Florence 50134, Italy; Infectious and Tropical Diseases Unit, Careggi University Hospital, Florence, Italy.
⁷ Department of Experimental and Clinical Medicine, University of Florence, Florence 50134, Italy. Electronic address: amedeo.amedei@unifi.it.

PMID: 38636822
DOI: 10.1016/j.micinf.2024.105339

Abstract

Purpose: Few reports focused on the role of oral microbiome diversity in HIV infection. We characterized the microbiota-immunity axis in a cohort of treatment-naïve HIV-1-infected patients undergoing antiretroviral therapy (ART) focusing on the oral microbiome (OM) and immunological responsivity.

Methods: The sequencing of 16S rRNA V3-V4 hypervariable region was performed on salivary samples of 15 healthy control (HC) and 12 HIV + patients before starting ART and after reaching virological suppression. Then, we correlated the OM composition with serum cytokines and the Short Chain Fatty acids (SCFAs).

Results: The comparison between HIV patients and HC oral microbiota showed differences in the bacterial α-diversity and richness. We documented a negative correlation between oral Prevotella and intestinal valeric acid at before starting ART and a positive correlation between oral Veillonella and gut acetic acid after reaching virological suppression. Finally, an increase in the phylum Proteobacteria was observed comparing saliva samples of immunological responders (IRs) patients against immunological non-responders (INRs).

Conclusions: For the first time, we described an increase in the oral pro-inflammatory Proteobacteria phylum in INRs compared to IRs. We provided more evidence that saliva could be a non-invasive and less expensive approach for research involving the oral cavity microbiome in HIV patients.

Keywords: HIV; Immunological responders; Microbiota-immunity axis; Oral microbiota; Proteobacteria; Viremia.