Associations between species-level indoor microbiome, environmental characteristics, and asthma in junior high schools of Terengganu, Malaysia

Abstract

Indoor microbiome exposure is important for asthma development, but current studies characterize the microbiome at the genus or above levels due to technical limitations. We aim to profile bacterial and fungal composition and concentration at the species level and assess its potential health effects. Four hundred sixty-three students from 8 junior high schools in Terengganu, Malaysia, were surveyed for asthma symptoms. Full-length PacBio amplicon sequencing and qPCR were conducted to quantify the absolute microbial concentration in the vacuum dust of the selected classroom. In total, 1358 bacterial and 358 fungal species were characterized, and drastic compositional variation was observed among classrooms. Three-level linear regression analyses revealed that taxa richness in Cyanobacteria were negatively associated with asthma (FDR\u2009<\u20090.001). The absolute concentration of Nocardioides exalbidus was protectively associated with asthma, and four bacteria species were positively associated with asthma (FDR\u2009<\u20090.1). Interestingly, all five species were recently isolated and characterized in Asian countries and never reported to associate with asthma. Indoor NO2 and formaldehyde concentration were associated with the overall bacterial community variation and fungal richness, respectively (p\u2009<\u20090.05). No environmental characteristics were directly associated with asthma, but indoor relative humidity, CO2 concentration, and weight of vacuum dust were associated with the asthma-related species (p\u2009<\u20090.05), suggesting a potential indirect health effect on students. This is the first study to characterize indoor microbiome and asthma-associated microorganisms at the species level, representing a region-specific microbiome exposure pattern in a tropical Asian country.