Longitudinal relationship between the gut microbiota variation and diversity and gut graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) following pediatric allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) – Case series

• Published in: International journal of medical microbiology Vol. 313; no. 3; p. 151580
• Main Authors: Gray, Ashley N., Tobin, Nicole H., Moore, Theodore B., Li, Fan, Aldrovandi, Grace M.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Germany Elsevier GmbH 01.05.2023; Elsevier
• Subjects: Adult; Child; Gastrointestinal Microbiome; GI GVHD; Graft vs Host Disease - etiology; Graft vs Host Disease - therapy; graft-versus-host disease; Gut microbiota; GVHD; Hematopoietic stem cell transplantation; Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation - adverse effects; Humans; Longitudinal Studies; Pediatric transplantation; Prospective Studies; Gut microbiota; Pediatric transplantation; GI GVHD; GVHD; Hematopoietic stem cell transplantation; graft-versus-host disease
• ISSN: 1438-4221; 1618-0607
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ijmm.2023.151580

Allogeneic Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation (HCT) offers children with life-threatening diseases a chance at survival. Complications from graft-versus-host disease (GVHD, Stages 0–4) represent a significant cause of morbidity and mortality which has been recently associated with gut dysbiosis the adult HCT population. Here, our objective was to conduct a prospective, longitudinal cohort study in nine pediatric allogeneic HCT participants by collecting longitudinally post-HCT stool specimens up to 1 year. Stool microbiota analyses showed that allogeneic HCT and antibiotic therapy lead to acute shifts in the diversity of the gut microbiota with those experiencing stages 3–4 gut GVHD having significantly greater microbiota variation over time when compared to control participants (p = 0.007). Pre-HCT microbiota diversity trended towards an inverse relationship with gut microbiota stability over time, however, this did not reach statistical significance (p = 0.05). Future large prospective studies are necessary to elucidate the mechanisms underlying these dynamic changes in the gut microbiota following pediatric allogeneic HCT.