Indoor bacteria and asthma in adults: a multicentre case–control study within ECRHS II

Pekkanen, J
Valkonen, M
Täubel, M
Tischer, C
Leppänen, H
Kärkkäinen, PM
Rintala, H
Zock, J-P
Casas, L
Probst-Hensch, N
Forsberg, B
Holm, M
Janson, C
Pin, I
Gislason, T
Jarvis, DL
Heinrich, J
Hyvärinen, A

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Publication date

November 2017

DOI

10.1183/13993003.01241-2017

Publisher

European Respiratory Society (ERS)

ISSN

0903-1936

Journal

European Respiratory Journal

Citation count (estimate)

Abstract

Both protective and adverse effects of indoor microbial exposure on asthma have been reported, but mostly in children. To date, no study in adults has used non-targeted methods for detection of indoor bacteria followed by quantitative confirmation. A cross-sectional study of 198 asthmatic and 199 controls was conducted within the European Community Respiratory Health Survey (ECRHS) II. DNA was extracted from mattress dust for bacterial analysis using denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE). Selected bands were sequenced and associations with asthma confirmed with four quantitative PCR (qPCR) assays. 15 out of 37 bands detected with DGGE, which had at least a suggestive association (p<0.25) with asthma, were sequenced. Of the four tar...