RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 Analysis of the microbiota of sputum samples from patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease JF European Respiratory Journal JO Eur Respir J FD European Respiratory Society SP P523 VO 44 IS Suppl 58 A1 Ning Shen A1 John Erb-Downward A1 Yipeng Du A1 Juan Wang A1 Gary Huffnagle A1 Margaret Gyetko A1 Bei He YR 2014 UL http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/44/Suppl_58/P523.abstract AB Background: It is increasingly evident that the changes of respiratory tract microbiome might have a role in the pathogenesis of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Objective: We sought to characterize and compare the microbiome of induced sputum in non-smokers (NS), healthy smokers (HS) and COPD patients. Methods: Induced sputum samples were obtained from 29 COPD patients, 16 healthy smokers and 3 non-smokers. Total DNA was extracted from sputum supernatants. Pyrosequencing of the V5-V3 hypervariable region of the bacterial 16S ribosomal RNA gene was performed using Roche 454-based sequencing protocols. As sequences of varying length classify differently, only sequences that could be classified to the genus-level were used from the low stringency analysis. Results: Lower numbers of bacteria can be detected in induced sputum using the molecular techniques that are currently available. Although the total numbers detected were not different among the induced sputum from NS, HS, or COPD patients, specimens from HS subjects clearly harbor a different bacterial composition than specimens from severe COPD patients (P<0.05), and NS subjects might have different bacterial composition than smokers. Conclusion: Patients with severe COPD have an altered microbial composition in the respiratory tract and smoking status might have effect on sputum microbiota.