Intestinal mycobiota composition and changes in children with thalassemia who underwent allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation

Abstract

[Background]: Allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) alters the diversity of the intestinal bacterial microbiota. This study aimed to evaluate human mycobiota composition pre-HSCT and post-HSCT in children with thalassemia.

[Method]: Ten children with thalassemia undergoing allogeneic HSCT were enrolled. The stool samples were collected before the transplantation regimen, before the transplant day, and +15, +30 days, and three months after transplantation. Stool samples were also collected from the donor and the patient's caregivers. Gut mycobiota composition was evaluated with metagenomic analysis.

[Results]: Pretransplant mycobiota of children with thalassemia (the predominant genus was Saccharomyces, 64.1%) has been shown to approximate the diverse mycobiota compositions of healthy adult donors but becomes altered (lower diversity) following transplant procedures. Three months after HSCT, phyla Ascomycota and Basidiomycota were 83.4% and 15.6%, respectively. The predominant species were Saccaharomyces_uc and Saccharomyces cerevisiae (phylum Ascomycota); we also observed Malassezia restricta and Malassezia globosa (phylum Basidiomycota) (∼13%). On day 90 after HSCT, we observed 65.3% M. restricta and 18.4% M. globosa predominance at the species level in a four-year-old boy with acute graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) (skin and gut involvement) 19 days after transplantation included.

[Conclusion]: The mycobiota composition of children with thalassemia altered after HSCT. We observed Malassezia predominance in a child with GVHD. Further studies in children with GVHD will identify this situation.