Microbial EV composition at the genus level
Taxonomic profiling of the microbial EVs isolated from EBC samples was
conducted as described above, which revealed that Acinetobacter ,Pseudomonas , Staphylococcus , Bacteroides , andSphingomonas were the most prominent genera in the EBC samples
(Figure 2A ). Acinetobacter was the most common microbial
EV genus in the control (13.0%) and asthmatic (5.4%) EBC samples,
followed by Staphylococcus (5.2%) and Pseudomonas (5.0%)
in the healthy control group and Sphingomonas (5.0%) andBacteroides (4.0%) in the asthma group. Comparison of the
average relative abundance of the 25 most common microbial EV genera in
the healthy control and asthma groups using a heat map demonstrated the
differential abundance within each sample and between the groups
(Figure 2B ). Furthermore, t-test analysis of the average
relative abundance of microbial EV genera yielded multiple taxa that
significantly differed between the control and asthma groups
(Figure 2C ). The five most common genera that were enriched in
the control group in descending order of proportion wereAcinetobacter , Staphylococcus , Bifidiobacterium ,Blautia , and Collinsella , while Sphingomonas ,Akkermansia , Methylophaga , Acidocella , andMarinobacter were the most common five genera that were
significantly depleted in the healthy control group
(p <0.05). The compositional variation between the
microbial EV profiles of EBC samples obtained from patients with
non-eosinophilic and eosinophilic asthma was also assessed, and no
discernable difference was observed at the phylum and genus levels
(Figures S2 and S3 ).