GHTM/IHMT-NOVA has the pleasure to announce that the scientific article “Oral polio revaccination is associated with changes in gut and upper respiratory microbiomes of infants”, is published today in open access in Frontiers in Microbiology.
The scientific article is a result of the Micro-OPV study carried out by the GHTM/IHMT-NOVA’s scientists Miguel Lanaspa (MD, PhD), Patrícia Abrantes (PhD), Henrique Silveira (PhD) and Márcia Melo Medeiros (MD, PhD), in collaboration with the Bandim Health Project (BHP) in Guinea-Bissau, Statens Serum Institut and University of Southern Denmark, both in Denmark. The Micro-OPV study was supported by GHTM/IHMT-NOVA, through the funds received from the national Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (UID/MULTI/04413/2013 and UID/04413/2020).
The Micro-OPV study is associated with a large cluster randomized clinical trial, the RECAMP-OPV (NCT03460002), which involves 10,000 participants and has been carried out by the BHP in Guinea-Bissau. The RECAMP-OPV aims to measure the effect of an extra dose of the oral poliomyelitis vaccine (OPV revaccination) administrated to infants from 0 to 8 months of age, on the morbidity and mortality during the next 12 months after revaccination. “Previous evidence has shown that OPV, a live-attenuated bivalent vaccine, confers protection to unrelated pathogens through an unknown mechanism, hence exhibiting non-specific effects. Our working hypothesis was that OPV non-specific effects could operate through the microbiome of gut and upper respiratory tract since both biological compartments are sites of poliovirus replication in human body”, said Márcia Medeiros.
Under the Micro-OPV study, gut and upper respiratory microbiome from OPV-revaccinated and control infants were compared before and two months after revaccination. Bacterial communities were characterized by amplicon deep sequence targeting the 16S rRNA subunit to determine changes in diversity and composition of both bacterial microbiotas over time. As mentioned by the member of VBD-GHTM, “we have shown that OPV revaccination is associated with a bacterial composition with less pathogenic/opportunistic organisms in both microbiomes, and a greater variety of organisms in the gut, known to be important for the development and modulation of the local and systemic immune response. Addressing the non-specific effects of OPV and its mechanisms of action are urgently needed to mitigate the impact of the planned withdrawal of OPV, as part of the efforts to eradicate polio infection”.
Moreover, “it is important to highlight the contribution of the Micro-OPV study to the IHMT-NOVA Biobank (Biotropical Resources) with the first biological samples and by supporting for the development of the first protocols for collecting rectal and nasopharyngeal swabs from infants and for extracting DNA from this type of material for next generation sequencing methodologies”, concluded Márcia Medeiros.
The Micro-OPV study fits into the Infectious Disease strategic area of the GHTM’s groups Vector Borne Disease (VBD), Tuberculosis, HIV and Opportunistic Pathogens (THOP) and Individual Health Care (IHC) and, the GHTM’s cross-cutting issues Public Health Information and Diagnostics.
The article is available on: https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2022.1016220