SYSTEMATIC REVIEW article
Front. Immunol.
Sec. Microbial Immunology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2025.1675124
The alterations of airway and intestine microbiota in asthma: a systematic review and meta-analysis
Provisionally accepted
- 1Ruijin Hospital Affiliated Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine Department of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, Shanghai, China
- 2Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China
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Background: Emerging evidence highlights notable differences in microbial ecology between individuals with asthma and healthy controls (HC). This meta-analysis aims to compile data on microbial diversity indices in the airway and intestinal microbiota of both groups for comparative analysis. Methods: We conducted a thorough systematic search of literature in PubMed, Embase, the Web of Science, and the Cochrane Library to find English-language studies focused on airway and intestinal microbiota in asthma, published from May 16, 2020 to May 16, 2025. We extracted data regarding microbial diversity indices to facilitate comparisons between the asthma group and HC. Results: 26 studies were included in this systematic review. Our analysis revealed no significant differences in alpha diversity between the two participant groups; however, beta diversity exhibited significant differences in 9 of the studies reviewed. Conclusion: Our meta-analysis did not confirm the hypothesis that asthma shows lower alpha diversity than HC. To enhance understanding and inform future diagnostic and therapeutic approaches, further studies should be conducted with larger sample sizes and more robust methodologies. Systematic review registration: PROSPERO (https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/), identifier CRD420251113790.
Keywords: Human airway microbiome, Human intestine microbiome, Alpha diversity, beta diversity, Relative abundance, Asthma, Meta-analysis
Received: 28 Jul 2025; Accepted: 15 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Li, Lu, Tang, Chen, Lu, Hu, Zhu and Feng. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Haixing Zhu, starfishz@hotmail.com
Yun Feng, fy01057@163.com
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