Analysis of Microbiomes Associated with COVID-19 Diagnostic Testing Swabs with Respect to Disease Status and Severity

• Activity Number: 83 - Frontiers in Analysis of Microbiome Data: From Methods to Applications
• Type: Invited
• Date/Time: Monday, August 8, 2022 : 8:30 AM to 10:20 AM
• Sponsor: ENAR
• Author(s): Alexander V. Alekseyenko*
• Companies: Medical University of South Carolina
• Keywords: microbiome; covid19; just in time biobank; multivariate analysis; predictive analysis

Abstract

We hypothesize that the colonizing microbiome is linked to the clinical status of the COVID-19 patients and may provide early leads for stratification of cases into risk categories. To address this hypothesis, we have established IRB- and IBC-approved protocols for access to surplus COVID-19 testing materials using the Living µBiome Bank TM (https://livingbiobank.musc.edu/). Currently, we have biobanked 1,160 positive and negative specimens from these materials. We have first determined that the preliminary effect sizes for the difference in microbiome composition between COVID19+ and COVID19- specimens to be approximately 0.62, using 10 specimens from our biobank. We next completed the analysis of additional specimens with sufficient power to detect this effect size. In this talk, we will present multivariate, univariate, and predictive analyses of these microbiome data and associated clinical covariates and outcomes.