Congratulations to Kelsey Huus and colleagues on their new paper in Science! The study shows that the gut microbiome helps determine how strongly people develop fever following vaccination. Individuals who developed higher fevers after COVID-19 vaccination had gut microbiomes with elevated expression of bacterial flagellin, a potent immune stimulant, even before vaccination. Experiments with human intestinal cells and germ-free mice demonstrated that these microbial communities can amplify inflammatory responses. The findings reveal a previously unrecognized role for the gut microbiome in shaping systemic inflammation.
This work was a broad international collaboration involving the µHEAT Study Group and colleagues Meral Esen, Peter Kremsner, Lisa Maier, Andrew Gewirtz, Benoit Chassaing, Julie Parsonnet, Sang-Moo Kang, Marc-André Langlois, and many others. Many thanks to everyone who contributed!