Abstract
Background: Microbiota in the lower respiratory tract is largely derived from microaspirations from oral and nasal cavities and has been shown to vary between healthy and TSCOPD in the western world.
Aim: To study and compare the microbiota from oral and nasal cavities of healthy, TSCOPD and BMSCOPD subjects from a rural population.
Methods: Oral washing and nasal swab samples were collected from 12 healthy, 12 TSCOPD and 12 BMSCOPD subjects. Samples were sequenced using 16S rRNA gene v4 region (Illumina HiSeq, 2500 platform, USA). Downstream analysis was carried out using QIIME pipeline (v1.8), Mothur software (v1.34) and R scripts.
Results: Significant differences were observed in bacterial diversity and their abundance between healthy and COPD subjects (p<0.05). Beta diversity analysis revealed differences in microbiota between BMSCOPD and TSCOPD subjects. At genus level, Neisseria, Prevotella, Streptococcus, Staphylococcus, Moraxella, Rothia and Haemophilus were found to differ in their abundance between study groups.
Conclusion: Oral and nasal microbiota are significantly different between healthy and COPD subjects. Within the COPD group, BMSCOPD subjects had different microbiota than SMCOPD subjects. The clinical phenotypic differences observed between TSCOPD and BMSCOPD could be due to differences in microbial communities, which requires further research.
- Copyright ©the authors 2016
