Association Between Ocular Microbiomes of Children and Their Siblings and Parents

This study aims to investigate the association of ocular microbiomes between children and their parents and siblings.

An observational study was conducted at family units, involving 114 children and 131 parents, with conjunctival swab samples collected and analyzed using 16S rDNA high-throughput sequencing. Comparative analyses, diversity indexes, and distance measures were used to assess microbial community differences.

Children's ocular microbiomes are more similar to their parents than unrelated adults (P < 0.001 for both Bray-Curtis and Jensen-Shannon distances). Additionally, children's ocular microbiomes exhibited greater similarities with their siblings than with unrelated children (P < 0.001). However, couples who lived in the same family showed no more similarity in the composition of their ocular microbiota than did unrelated individuals (Bray-Curtis distance P = 0.7; Jensen-Shannon distance P = 0.47). Four genera, Aquabacterium, Corynebacterium, Staphylococcus and Streptococcus, were highly shared between parental and children's ocular microbiomes (>70% shared rate). A relatively weak correlation was observed between the age of child and the similarity comparing child's and adults' microbiomes. The interquartile range of parental contribution to a child's ocular microbiome was 11.2% (first quartile) to 33.0% (third quartile), suggesting a substantial majority attributable to unknown factors.

Children's ocular microbiome is associated with that of their siblings and their parents, with this association showing a small tendency to increase with the age of the children. These findings highlight the importance of considering familial and environmental contexts in future microbiological research.