ArticlePediatric research2025
Upper and lower airway microbiota across infancy and childhood.
Article in Pediatric research, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.
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Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed.
- The role of the respiratory microbiome in acute and chronic respiratory diseases.Nature reviews. Microbiology · 2026Review
- Targeting Eustachian Tube Microenvironment: Probiotic Surfactant Utilization for Antimicrobial Peptide Secretion to Prevent Otitis Media.Probiotics and antimicrobial proteins · 2026Review
- Airway Microbiome Is Associated with Atherosclerosis in Adults from Southern Caribbean.Microorganisms · 2026Article
- Perinatal exposures and upper respiratory tract microbiome composition are associated with age at first acute otitis media episode.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Microbial signatures and host immune responses associated with the development of ventilator-associated pneumonia among patients with neurological injuries.Microbiology spectrum · 2026Article
- Article
- The respiratory microbiome influences the occurrence of respiratory diseases in children.Frontiers in pediatrics · 2026Review
- Article
- Smoking-induced microbial dysbiosis: a key driver of systemic diseases and emerging therapeutic opportunities.Cell death discovery · 2025Review
- Review
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13 authors.
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Abstract
backgroundThe upper and lower respiratory tracts feature distinct environments and responses affecting microbial colonization but investigating the relationship between them is technically challenging. We aimed to identify relationships between taxa colonizing the nasopharynx and trachea across childhood.
methodsWe employed V4 16S rRNA gene sequencing to profile nasopharyngeal swabs and tracheal aspirates collected from 172 subjects between 20 weeks and 18 years of age. These samples were collected prior to elective procedures over the course of 20 weeks in 2020 from subjects enrolled in a cross-sectional study. After extraction, sequencing, and quality control, we studied the remaining 147 of 172 nasopharyngeal swabs and 95 of 172 tracheal aspirates, including 80 subject-matched pairs of samples.
resultsSequencing data revealed that the nasopharynx is colonized by few, often highly abundant taxa, while the tracheal aspirates feature greater diversity. The patterns of colonization identified in the nasopharynx correlate with subject age across childhood.
conclusionOur data suggests that there are relatively few species that colonize both the nasopharyngeal tract and the trachea. Furthermore, we observe a pattern of change in the nasopharyngeal microbiota that is correlated with age, suggesting a possible developmental progression of the nasopharyngeal microbiota across childhood. IMPACT: The airway microbiota in childhood plays important roles in respiratory health and immune development. In this work, we report on paired nasopharyngeal swab and tracheal aspirate samples from a cross-sectional cohort of children from infancy to 18 years. We find that the upper and lower airway microbiota are unlikely to share taxa and do not correlate in terms of diversity. We show that the composition of the upper airway microbiota is strongly correlated with age, with a stereotypic developmental trajectory during childhood and adolescence. Our results inform our understanding of airway microbiota assembly and may be used to predict airway disease in young children.
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