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Asthma is a common chronic respiratory disease that affects children and adults and can have a serious impact on their quality of life. Factors contributing to the development of asthma and related exacerbations are multifactorial, with microbial communities colonizing the airways possibly playing a key role. The study included asthmatic (79) and healthy children (57) aged 5-16 years. Nasal and throat swabs were collected, and bacterial (16s rRNA) and fungal (18s rRNA) amplicon sequence analysis was performed. Diversity indices and the most abundant microbial genera were estimated accordingly. At the level of the bacteriome in the nasal samples, the asthma group had significantly lower diversity than the control group (p = 0.02). However, the microbiota of the asthma cohort was more evenly distributed, and were enriched in the control group. Throat samples collected from the asthma cohort revealed significantly lower diversity (p < 0.0001), with a significant difference in species composition between the two groups (p = 0.005). Enriched bacterial species were different within the asthma subgroups (controlled vs uncontrolled asthma). The fungal microbiome of the nasal and throat samples showed no difference in species richness between the two groups, however, a significant difference in beta diversity (species composition) was detected. The nasal samples from the control group were enriched with species, while the asthma cases were enriched with species. On the other hand, throat specimens of the asthma group were found to be enriched with and Our findings suggest that asthmatic samples were less diverse than the control samples with certain microbial genera enriching some study groups. Addressing the biomarkers that influence the progression of asthma could lead to improved care for children suffering from severe asthmatic episodes, possibly by including targeted therapies and prevention strategies.

Breast cancer is one of the major causes of female morbidity and mortality, accounting for ~25% of the total cancer cases in women. Phosphatidylinositol-4,5-bisphosphate 3-kinase catalytic α subunit (PIK3CA) mutations serve a major role in downstream signaling of receptor tyrosine kinases. The present study aimed to elucidate the frequency of exon 9 and 20 mutations of PIK3CA and their role in disease progression. A total of 118 tumor samples from confirmed breast cancer patients were collected from the histopathology laboratory at King Fahd Hospital of the University (Al-Khobar, Saudi Arabia). Sanger sequencing was performed on extracted DNA to identify the mutations on exons 9 and 20 of PIK3CA. The results were further validated by competitive allele-specific TaqMan polymerase chain reaction. Three mutations, namely E542K and E545K within exon 9, and H1047R within exon 20, were observed in 25 patients (21.2%). Among these, 18 patients carried the H1047R mutation of the kinase domain, while the remaining 7 patients carried mutations in the helical domain. PIK3CA mutations were associated with the estrogen receptor-positive/progesterone receptor-positive (ER+/PR+) group of tumors in contrast to the ER−/PR− group (P=0.021). Furthermore, it was observed that the PIK3CA mutation was associated with a poor disease prognosis. Taken together, the current study emphasized the potential of PIK3CA mutations as an important biomarker for breast cancer classification and the possible use of PIK3CA inhibitor as targeted therapy for breast cancer.