Journal of Genetics and Genomics: What about the children who are infected with the new crown?

The new crown virus has ravaged the world for a year and a half.
With people's in-depth understanding of the new crown virus, the cure and recovery rate of new crown cases is continuously increasing, but the sequelae after recovery should also be taken seriously
.

A document published in Nature pointed out that most COVID-19 survivors face many health problems.

So, after children are infected with the new crown, will they also have the similar sequelae? A joint research team from Fudan University, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Yunnan University conducted a study on this, and published a title of Progressive deterioration of the upper respiratory tract and the gut microbiomes in children during the early infection stages of COVID in the Journal of Genetics and Genomics .
-19 articles
.

This article studies the dynamic changes of the respiratory and intestinal microflora of children with COVID-19, thereby revealing the subsequent impact of the new coronavirus on recovered children

Journal of Genetics and Genomics Progressive deterioration of the upper respiratory tract and the gut microbiomes in children during the early infection stages of COVID-19

This study adopted a controlled trial method, dividing children with COVID-19 and healthy children into two groups for sample data collection.
Among them, the group of children with COVID-19 consisted of 9 children aged 7-139 months old who had been infected with the new coronavirus.
The healthy group consists of 14 healthy children of the same age who are not infected with the new coronavirus
.

The experiment collected a total of 103 COVID-19 specimens from two groups of children, including 27 pairs of throat swabs, nasal swabs or stool specimens, and high-throughput sequencing of these samples

First, the researchers compared the diversity of microbial flora in the throat, nasal cavity, and intestines between the child group and the healthy group
.

The data shows that the two groups of samples have different microbial flora composition characteristics.

Comparison of microbial flora diversity between COVID-19 patient group and healthy control group

Comparison of microbial flora diversity between COVID-19 patient group and healthy control group Comparison of microbial flora diversity between COVID-19 patient group and healthy control group

Subsequently, in order to analyze the dynamic changes of the upper respiratory tract and intestinal flora of children with COVID-19 and compare the data with the healthy group more refined data, the researchers used Dirichlet multinomial mixtures (DMM) to compare the two The bacterial flora of the children in the group is divided into 8 types, and the comparison results show:

The upper respiratory tract flora of 7 children with COVID-19 evolved from an early healthy, high-diversity community structure to an imbalanced flora diversity structure, which shows that despite good clinical recovery, the composition and function of the upper respiratory tract flora continue to deteriorate
.

It is particularly noteworthy that 3 children were observed to have upper respiratory tract dysbacteriosis that lasted at least 19-24 days after discharge (ie 42-58 days after the onset of symptoms);

For the intestinal area, 3 children with COVID-19 experienced deterioration in the structure of the intestinal flora
.

For example, one of the children's flora recovered on the 7th day after the onset of symptoms, but worsened again on the 37th day

These results all show that during the treatment of COVID-19, children's respiratory and intestinal microflora will gradually deteriorate
.

Follow-up records of changes in microbial flora of 9 children with COVID-19

Follow-up records of changes in microbial flora of 9 children with COVID-19 Follow-up records of changes in microbial flora of 9 children with COVID-19

Finally, the study pointed out that for children, the microflora of the upper respiratory tract and intestinal tract have changed greatly during COVID-19, and may maintain long-term deterioration or disorder
.

Researchers say that the microbial flora in early life plays an important role in the development of host immunity, metabolism and nervous system, and profoundly affects the health of later life.

This study also has limitations.
The researchers mentioned that due to the good situation of domestic epidemic control, the number of children in this trial is small
.

However, although the long-term efficacy of COVID-19 on children requires further follow-up and larger cohort studies, the data this time shows that early implementation of various intervention strategies to regulate the development of microbial flora may be a post-epidemic The age of children's clinical treatment provides benefits

Original source:

Original source:

Rong Xu.

Progressive deterioration of the upper respiratory tract and the gut microbiomes in children during the early infection stages of COVID-19 in this message