Obesity-associated asthma is common, difficult to treat, and the biological mechanisms involved are poorly understood. Dysregulated immune responses and altered gut microbiota configurations have been associated with obesity and/or asthma. However, whether aberrant immune-airway microbiota relationships exist in relation to an obesity-associated asthma phenotype is unclear. We hypothesized that characteristics of the airway microbiota and its associations with immune markers measured in the airway or blood, differ between adults with and without obesity (defined as body-mass index ≥ 30) and further differ by asthmatic status among individuals with obesity. Our results suggest that obesity itself is associated with an altered airway microbiome, which further differs in the setting of asthma. These findings invite further investigation into the functional consequences of these interactions and relationships to clinical outcomes in obesity-associated asthma.
