The first taxonomic and functional characterization of human CAVD-associated microbiota
Authors:Lavinia Curini1,#, Brunilda Alushi2,#, Mary Roxana Christopher3, Simone Baldi1, Leandro Di Gloria4, Pierluigi Stefano5, Anna Laganà5, Luisa Iannone5, Herko Grubitzsch6, Ulf Landmesser7, Matteo Ramazzotti4, Elena Niccolai1,§, Alexander Lauten2,§ and Amedeo Amedei1,8,§
1 Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, University of Florence, 50139 Florence, Italy.
2 Department of Cardiology, Campus Benjamin Franklin, Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, and German Centre for Cardiovascular Research (DZHK); Department of Interventional Cardiology, Klinik Vincentinum Augsburg, Germany.
3 Department of Cardiology, Campus Benjamin Franklin, Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, and German Centre for Cardiovascular Research (DZHK).
4 Department of Biomedical, Experimental and Clinical Sciences “Mario Serio”, University of Florence, Florence, Italy.
5 Cardiac Surgery, Careggi University Hospital, 50134 Florence, Italy.
6 Berlin Institute of Health; Department of Cardiology, German Heart Centre Berlin (DHZB).
7 Department of Cardiology, Campus Benjamin Franklin, Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin and German Centre for Cardiovascular Research (DZHK); Berlin Institute of Health.
8 SOD of Interdisciplinary Internal Medicine, Azienda Ospedaliera Universitaria Careggi (AOUC), 50139 Florence, Italy.
# These authors contributed equally
§ These senior authors contributed equally
Keywords:
aortic valve disease, valve calcification, microbiota, immune response, T cells.
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Conflict of interest statement:
The authors have declared no conflict of interest.
Please cite this article as:
Lavinia Curini, Brunilda Alushi, Mary Roxana Christopher, Simone Baldi, Leandro Di Gloria, Pierluigi Stefano, Anna Lag-anà, Luisa Iannone,Herko Grubitzsch, Ulf Landmesser, Matteo Ramazzotti, Elena Niccolai, Alexander Lauten and Amedeo Amedei (2023). The first taxonomic and functional characterization of human CAVD-associated microbiota. Microbial Cell 10(2): 36-48. doi: 10.15698/mic2023.02.791
© 2023 Curini et al. This is an open-access article released under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, which allows the unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are acknowledged.
Abstract:
Introduction: Calcific aortic valve disease (CAVD) is the most common heart valve disorder, defined by a remodeling multistep process: namely, valve fibrosis with its area narrowing, impaired blood flow, and final calcification phase. Nowadays, the only treatment is the surgical valve replacement.
As for other cardiovascular diseases, growing evidence suggest an active role of the immune system in the calcification process that could be modulated by the microbiota. To address this point, we aimed to investigate and characterize, for the first time, the presence of a valve microbiota and associated immune response in human CAVD.
Method: Calcified aortic valve (CAV) samples from twenty patients (11 from Germany and 9 from Italy) with diagnosis of severe symptomatic CAVD were used to assess the presence of infiltrating T cells, by cloning approach, and to characterize the valve microbiota, by 16S rRNA gene sequencing (NGS).
Results: We documented the presence of infiltrating T lymphocytes, especially the T helper subset, in CAV samples. Moreover, we found a tissue-associated microbiota in freshly collected CAV samples, which was significantly different in Italian and German patients, suggesting potential correlation with other cardiovascular risk factors.
Conclusion: The presence of microbiota in inflamed CAV samples represents the right trigger point to explain the valve calcification process, encouraging further studies to explore the potential link between bacteria and adaptive immune response and to define the critical role of local microbiota-immunity axis on CAVD development.
doi: 10.15698/mic2023.02.791
Volume 10, pp. 36 to 48, published 13/01/2023.