TY - JOUR T1 - LSC 2013 abstract - Microbial communities in the respiratory tract of patients with interstitial lung disease JF - European Respiratory Journal JO - Eur Respir J VL - 42 IS - Suppl 57 SP - PP171 AU - Markus Hilty AU - Christian Garzoni AU - Silvio Brugger AU - Kathrin Mühlemann AU - Christophe von Garnier Y1 - 2013/09/01 UR - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/42/Suppl_57/PP171.abstract N2 - Background: Molecular methods based on 16S rRNA gene evolutionary differences/diversity are able to characterise the microbiota in the respiratory tract in health and disease.Objectives: Our goals were 1) to characterize bacterial communities in the lower airways of patients with and without interstitial lung disease (ILD) 2) to explore if and how immunosuppression and viral or fungal infection influence the microbiota and 3) to analyse if there is a topographical continuity along the respiratory tract.Methods: We examined the upper and lower respiratory tract of 30 patients with and without interstitial lung disease (15 and 15, respectively). Bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) fluid and oropharyngeal swabs were collected simultaneously and characterisation of the microbiota was performed by ultra-deep 16S rRNA gene sequencing.Results: The microbiota of the lower airways of the majority of patients (27 patients; 90%) primarily consisted of Prevotellaceae, Streptococcaceae and Acidaminococcaceae without significantly disordered microbial communities for ILD. In contrast, immunosuppression showed a trend towards reduced diversity (p=0.06) and viral or fungal infection significantly affected both, bacterial diversity and composition (beta diversity) (p=0.01). Comparing bacterial populations of the upper with the lower respiratory tract showed significant topographical discontinuities for 7/30 (23%) patients.Conclusions: ILD is not associated with disordered lower airway microbiota. However, molecular analysis of the topographical microbiota continuity along the respiratory tract may provide additional information to assist management of patients presenting with clinical worsening of ILD. ER -