Abstract
Purpose :
To identify the core microbial community in conjunctival sac of Hong Kong healthy children using 16S rRNA next generation sequencing and to assess the factors influencing the compositions of the conjunctival microbiome.
Methods :
Healthy children of different ethnicities (Chinese, India, Pakistani, Nepalese, Filipino) in Hong Kong were included and conjunctival swabs were taken bilaterally. DNA was extracted and sequenced on an Illumina platform. Amplicon sequence variants (ASVs) were generated using DADA2 in Qiime2 and analyzed with MicrobiomeAnalyst.
Results :
A total of 196 conjunctival samples from 102 children (mean age ± SD, 8.9 ± 2.5 years; 44% female) were analyzed. Staphylococcus, Streptococcus, Cutibacterium, Corynebacterium, Enhydrobacter were found to be the most abundant genera. There were no significant age (4-9 and 10-15 years) or gender differences in the microbial compositions and alpha diversities. Among all ethnicities, Filipino children had the highest alpha diversity. Linear discriminant analysis found 9 genera (Corynebacterium, Escherichia_Shigella, Cuibacterium, Micrococcus, Streptococcus, Enhydrobacter, Dolosigranulum, Gemella, Acinetobacter) to be significantly different among different ethnicities.
Conclusions :
Our results identify the core microbial community of ocular surface in Hong Kong children and suggest that there are differences in the microbiome among children of different ethnicities who live in the same city. Further metagenomic study is required to how these compositional differences contribute to function of microbiome.
This abstract was presented at the 2023 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in New Orleans, LA, April 23-27, 2023.