{"doi":"10.1101/2021.03.20.21252680","title":"Age-related changes in the upper respiratory microbiome are associated with SARS-CoV-2 susceptibility and illness severity","abstract":"ABSTRACT Children are less susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 and typically have milder illness courses than adults. We studied the nasopharyngeal microbiomes of 274 children, adolescents, and young adults with SARS-CoV-2 exposure using 16S rRNA gene sequencing. We find that higher abundances of Corynebacterium species are associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection and SARS-CoV-2-associated respiratory symptoms, while higher abundances of Dolosigranulum pigrum are present in SARS-CoV-2-infected individuals without respiratory symptoms. We also demonstrate that the abundances of these bacteria are strongly, and independently, associated with age, suggesting that the nasopharyngeal microbiome may be a potentially modifiable mechanism by which age influences SARS-CoV-2 susceptibility and severity. Summary Evaluation of nasopharyngeal microbiome profiles in children, adolescents, and young adults with a SARS-CoV-2-infected close contact identified specific bacterial species that vary in abundance with age and are associated with SARS-CoV-2 susceptibility and the presence of SARS-CoV-2-associated respiratory symptoms.","journal":"medRxiv","year":2021,"id":214520,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":9,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9589,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2021-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":524485,"name":"Alexander W. McCumber","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":327477,"name":"Jhoanna N. Aquino","orcid":null,"position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":322434,"name":"Javier Rodriguez","orcid":"0000-0001-9608-5069","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":322353,"name":"Sarah M. Heston","orcid":"0000-0001-6150-1149","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":327484,"name":"Debra J. Lugo","orcid":null,"position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":325733,"name":"Alexandre T. Rotta","orcid":"0000-0002-4406-2276","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":3909,"name":"Nicholas A. Turner","orcid":"0000-0003-0650-4894","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":327479,"name":"Trevor S. Pfeiffer","orcid":null,"position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":327482,"name":"Thaddeus C. Gurley","orcid":null,"position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":32982,"name":"M. Anthony Moody","orcid":null,"position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":325732,"name":"Thomas N. Denny","orcid":"0000-0002-7364-8276","position":11,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":234841,"name":"John F. Rawls","orcid":"0000-0002-5976-5206","position":12,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":33039,"name":"Christopher W. Woods","orcid":"0000-0001-7240-2453","position":13,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":322359,"name":"Matthew S. Kelly","orcid":"0000-0001-8819-2315","position":14,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":325723,"name":"Jillian H. Hurst","orcid":"0000-0001-5079-9920","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":66,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:52:46.604690Z","pmid":"33791716","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}