Longitudinal stability of microbiome according to asthma
severity
The severe asthmatics who came for follow-up visit at one year are shown
in Table S1 . The dominance of Haemophilus influenzae orTropheryma whipplei persisted in the severe asthma subjects: 3
out of 4 subjects with Haemophilus influenza e dominance at
baseline and 2 out of 3 subjects with Tropheryma whippleidominance at baseline maintained this prevalence at longitudinal
follow-up (Figure 5 ). The same trend was observed at the
genus-level (Figure S6A ).
There was no shift in α-diversity (Figure 5B ) or β-diversity
(Figure 5C ) of airway microbiome in severe asthma cases
analysed at the species or genus level. Similar results were seen at the
genus level in α-diversity (Figure S6B ) or β-diversity
(Figure S6C ). Moreover, Mann-Whitney U test with Holm
correction between paired and non-paired groups showed that genus- and
species-level (Figures 5D & S6D ) microbiome compositional
similarity between paired samples that were from the same subject was
significantly higher compared to that from other possible sample
pairings.