Early-Life Adversity Leaves Its Imprint on the Oral Microbiome for More Than 20 Years and Is Associated with Long-Term Immune Changes.

The early-life microbiome (ELM) interacts with the psychosocial environment, in particular during early-life adversity (ELA), defining life-long health trajectories. The ELM also plays a significant role in the maturation of the immune system. We hypothesised that, in this context, the resilience of the oral microbiomes, despite being composed of diverse and distinct communities, allows them to retain an imprint of the early environment. Using 16S amplicon sequencing on the EpiPath cohort, we demonstrate that ELA leaves an imprint on both the salivary and buccal oral microbiome 24 years after exposure to adversity. Furthermore, the changes in both communities were associated with increased activation, maturation, and senescence of both innate and adaptive immune cells, although the interaction was partly dependent on prior herpesviridae exposure and current smoking. Our data suggest the presence of multiple links between ELA, Immunosenescence, and cytotoxicity that occur through long-term changes in the microbiome.

The COVID-19 Pandemic: Does Our Early Life Environment, Life Trajectory and Socioeconomic Status Determine Disease Susceptibility and Severity?

A poor socioeconomic environment and social adversity are fundamental determinants of human life span, well-being and health. Previous influenza pandemics showed that socioeconomic factors may determine both disease detection rates and overall outcomes, and preliminary data from the ongoing coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic suggests that this is still true. Over the past years it has become clear that early-life adversity (ELA) plays a critical role biasing the immune system towards a pro-inflammatory and senescent phenotype many years later. Cytotoxic T-lymphocytes (CTL) appear to be particularly sensitive to the early life social environment. As we understand more about the immune response to SARS-CoV-2 it appears that a functional CTL (CD8+) response is required to clear the infection and COVID-19 severity is increased as the CD8+ response becomes somehow diminished or exhausted. This raises the hypothesis that the ELA-induced pro-inflammatory and senescent phenotype may play a role in determining the clinical course of COVID-19, and the convergence of ELA-induced senescence and COVID-19 induced exhaustion represents the worst-case scenario with the least effective T-cell response. If the correct data is collected, it may be possible to separate the early life elements that have made people particularly vulnerable to COVID-19 many years later. This will, naturally, then help us identify those that are most at risk from developing the severest forms of COVID-19. In order to do this, we need to recognize socioeconomic and early-life factors as genuine medically and clinically relevant data that urgently need to be collected. Finally, many biological samples have been collected in the ongoing studies. The mechanisms linking the early life environment with a defined later-life phenotype are starting to be elucidated, and perhaps hold the key to understanding inequalities and differences in the severity of COVID-19.

Implementing routine monitoring for nuclease contamination of equipment and consumables into the quality Management system of a laboratory.

Nucleases are ubiquitous in the environment, present in biospecimens and widely used in many laboratory processes. However, in the wrong context, as contaminants, they have catastrophic potential because of their ability to rapidly degrade nucleic acids whilst retaining high resilience to inactivation. Although laboratories undertake rigorous precautions to prevent nuclease contamination, such measures are not infallible. In 2015, we devised and integrated a novel routine nuclease testing regimen into our Quality Management System that uses cleavable, fluorescent DNA and RNA substrates to detect, monitor and control for nuclease contamination in our laboratory processes, equipment and consumables. The testing regimen enables us to identify higher-risk activities, design our laboratory workflows such that risk is minimized and help fulfil our obligations in respect of ISO 20387:2018 General Requirements for Biobanking and ISO 17025 Testing and Calibrations Laboratory standards, both of which stipulate that environmental conditions in our laboratory must be monitored with defined quality control criteria. In seventeen rounds of testing (30 Test Items per round), 1.1 % of RNase tests and 0.2 % of DNase tests returned elevated nuclease levels (≥2.90 x 10-9 U RNase or 1.67 x 10-3 U DNase) and we were able to take remedial action. In no instance was an elevated nuclease level consequential in terms of an impact on sample quality. We present our protocols, results and observations.

Transgenerational impacts of early life adversity: from health determinants, implications to epigenetic consequences.

Exposure to different environmental factors, social and socioeconomic factors promotes development of the early-life adversity (ELA) phenotype. The persistence of this phenotype across generations is an interesting phenomenon that remains unexplored. Of late many studies have focused on disease-associated outcomes of ELA following exposure during childhood but the persistence of epigenetic imprints transmitted by ELA exposed parents to their offspring remains poorly described. It is possible that both parents are able to transmit ELA-associated genetic imprints to their offspring via transgenerational inheritance mechanisms. Here, we highlight the role of the mother and father in the biological process of conception, from epigenetic reprogramming cycles to later environmental exposures. We explain some of the known determinants of ELA (pollution, socioeconomic challenges, infections, etc.) and their disease-associated outcomes. Finally, we highlight the role of epigenetics, mitochondria and ncRNAs as mechanisms mediating transgenerational inheritance. Whether these transgenerational inheritance mechanisms occur in the human context remains unclear but there is a large body of suggestive evidence in non-human models that points out to its existence.

The oral microbiome is associated with HPA axis response to a psychosocial stressor.

Intense psychosocial stress during early life has a detrimental effect on health-disease balance in later life. Simultaneously, despite its sensitivity to stress, the developing microbiome contributes to long-term health. Following stress exposure, HPA-axis activation regulates the "fight or flight" response with the release of glucose and cortisol. Here, we investigated the interaction between the oral microbiome and the stress response. We used a cohort of 115 adults, mean age 24, who either experienced institutionalisation and adoption (n = 40) or were non-adopted controls (n = 75). Glucose and cortisol measurements were taken from participants following an extended socially evaluated cold pressor test (seCPT) at multiple time points. The cohort´s oral microbiome was profiled via 16S-V4 sequencing on microbial DNA from saliva and buccal samples. Using mixed-effect linear regressions, we identified 12 genera that exhibited an interaction with host's cortisol-glucose response to stress, strongly influencing intensity and clearance of cortisol and glucose following stress exposure. Particularly, the identified taxa influenced the glucose and cortisol release profiles and kinetics following seCPT exposure. In conclusion, our study provided evidence for the oral microbiome modifying the effect of stress on the HPA-axis and human metabolism, as shown in glucose-cortisol time series data.