Abstract
Ocular microbiome research has gained momentum in the recent past and has provided new insights into health and disease conditions. However, studies on sight threatening intraocular inflammatory diseases have remained untouched. In the present study, we attempted to identify the bacterial microbiome associated with post fever retinitis using a metagenomic sequencing approach. For this purpose, bacterial ocular microbiomes were generated from vitreous samples collected from control individuals (VC, n = 19) and individuals with post fever retinitis (PFR, n = 9), and analysed. The results revealed 18 discriminative genera in the microbiomes of the two cohorts out of which 16 genera were enriched in VC and the remaining two in PFR group. These discriminative genera were inferred to have antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, and probiotic function. Only two pathogenic bacteria were differentially abundant in 20% of the PFR samples. PCoA and heatmap analysis showed that the vitreous microbiomes of VC and PFR formed two distinct clusters indicating dysbiosis in the vitreous bacterial microbiomes. Functional assignments and network analysis also revealed that the vitreous bacterial microbiomes in the control group exhibited more evenness in the bacterial diversity and several bacteria had antimicrobial function compared to the PFR group.
Highlights
Several ocular manifestations like conjunctival congestion, uveitis, episcleritis, neuroretinitis, dacryoadenitis, and retinitis [1] have been reported to manifest following acute systemic febrile illness
Whole metagenomes were generated from the vitreous fluid of controls (VC, n = 19) and Postfever retinitis (PFR, n = 9) individuals (Table S1)
A total of 1.14 million reads were assigned to bacteria and the average number of reads assigned to a bacterial microbiome was 40,753 (Table 1)
Summary
Several ocular manifestations like conjunctival congestion, uveitis, episcleritis, neuroretinitis, dacryoadenitis, and retinitis [1] have been reported to manifest following acute systemic febrile illness. Postfever retinitis (PFR) is one such retinal inflammatory disorder that usually manifests between two to four weeks post systemic fever irrespective of the etiology [1]. A characteristic feature of PFR is that it usually manifests between two and four weeks after the fever in immunocompetent patients and patients present with sudden and painless onset of diminution of vision [1,2]. Despite all these clinical manifestations, it has always been a challenge to identify causative agents if there are any associated with PFR
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