Abstract
BackgroundAn increasing number of studies have implicated the microbiome in certain diseases, especially chronic diseases. In this study, the bacterial communities in the sputum of pulmonary tuberculosis patients were explored. Total DNA was extracted from sputum samples from 31 pulmonary tuberculosis patients and respiratory secretions of 24 healthy participants. The 16S rRNA V3 hyper-variable regions were amplified using bar-coded primers and pyro-sequenced using Roche 454 FLX.ResultsThe results showed that the microbiota in the sputum of pulmonary tuberculosis patients were more diverse than those of healthy participants (p<0.05). The sequences were classified into 24 phyla, all of which were found in pulmonary tuberculosis patients and 17 of which were found in healthy participants. Furthermore, many foreign bacteria, such as Stenotrophomonas, Cupriavidus, Pseudomonas, Thermus, Sphingomonas, Methylobacterium, Diaphorobacter, Comamonas, and Mobilicoccus, were unique to pulmonary tuberculosis patients.ConclusionsThis study concluded that the microbial composition of the respiratory tract of pulmonary tuberculosis patients is more complicated than that of healthy participants, and many foreign bacteria were found in the sputum of pulmonary tuberculosis patients. The roles of these foreign bacteria in the onset or development of pulmonary tuberculosis shoud be considered by clinicians.
Highlights
An increasing number of studies have implicated the microbiome in certain diseases, especially chronic diseases
Sequence diversity The 454 pyro-sequencing method was used to analysis a total of 71928 PCR amplicons in the samples from pulmonary tuberculosis patients and healthy participants, The amplicons averaged approximately 200 bp in length, and the average number of sequences per sample was 1307.8
A total 614 genera were observed; 235 genera were observed in healthy participants, and 564 genera were found in pulmonary tuberculosis patients, more than half of these accounted for only a small fraction of the total sequences
Summary
An increasing number of studies have implicated the microbiome in certain diseases, especially chronic diseases. Chronic pulmonary tuberculosis poses a global health emergency. It has been known for many centuries and is mainly caused by the bacillus Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Many reports have revealed co-infection with different strains or species of Mycobacterium in pulmonary tuberculosis patients. Mixed infection with Beijing and nonBeijing strains of M.tuberculosis [1] has been reported to mediate the increased reinfection rate in regions with a high incidence of tuberculosis. The systems biology concept of persistent infection is that infectious diseases reflect an equilibrium between the host and the pathogen that is established and maintained by a broad network of interactions.
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