Lung Microbiome Is Influenced by the Environment and Asthmatic Status in an Equine Model of Asthma

There is evidence that the lung microbiome differs between patients with asthma and healthy humans, but the effect of environmental conditions and medication is unknown and difficult to study. Equine asthma is a naturally occurring chronic airway disease characterized by reversible airway inflammation and bronchoconstriction upon exposure to inhaled antigens. In the present study, we evaluated the effect that environmental conditions and disease status have on pulmonary, nasal, and oral microbiomes. Six asthmatic and six healthy horses were studied while at pasture (low antigen exposure), as well as when being housed indoors and fed good-quality hay (moderate exposure) and poor-quality hay (high exposure). At each time point, lung function was recorded; BAL, oral, and nasal rinses were collected; and 16S rRNA gene sequencing was performed. Asthmatic horses developed airway obstruction and inflammation under moderate and high antigen exposure conditions, whereas nonasthmatic horses showed mild inflammation under high antigen exposure, without bronchoconstriction. Lung, oral, and nasal communities clustered by environmental condition, but only lung communities were different between healthy and asthmatic horses. The association between asthma and lung microbiome was strongest in horses under moderate antigen exposure. Pulmonary, oral, and nasal microbiomes are influenced by environmental conditions, but only the pulmonary microbiome differs between horses with and without asthma. This difference, seen mainly when airway inflammation was present in horses with asthma but not in control animals, suggests that the altered lung microbiome in asthma might not be inherent but coincident with inflammation.