Ericsson Aaron C, Personett Alexa R, Grobman Megan E, Rindt Hansjorg, Reinero Carol R
University of Missouri Metagenomics Center, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri, United States of America.
College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2016 May 2;11(5):e0154646. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0154646. eCollection 2016.
The upper and lower airways of healthy humans are reported to harbor stable and consistent bacterial populations, and the composition of these communities is altered in individuals affected with several respiratory diseases. Data regarding the presence of airway microbiota in other animals are scant and a better understanding of the composition and metabolic function of such bacterial populations is essential for the development of novel therapeutic and diagnostic modalities for use in both veterinary and human medicine. Based on targeted next-generation sequencing of feces and samples collected at multiple levels of the airways from 16 healthy female dogs, we demonstrate that canine airways harbor a topographically continuous microbiota with increasing relative abundance of proteobacterial species from the upper to lower airways. The lung-associated microbiota, as assessed via bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF), was the most consistent between dogs and was dominated by three distinct taxa, two of which were resolved to the species level and one to the level of family. The gene content of the nasal, oropharyngeal, and lung-associated microbiota, predicted using the Phylogenetic Investigations into Communities by Reconstruction of Unobserved States (PICRUSt) software, provided information regarding the glyoxylate and citrate cycle metabolic pathways utilized by these bacterial populations to colonize such nutrient-poor, low-throughput environments. These data generated in healthy subjects provide context for future analysis of diseased canine airways. Moreover, as dogs have similar respiratory anatomy, physiology, and immune systems as humans, are exposed to many of the same environmental stimuli, and spontaneously develop similar respiratory diseases, these data support the use of dogs as a model species for prospective studies of the airway microbiota, with findings translatable to the human condition.
据报道，健康人的上、下呼吸道中存在稳定且一致的细菌群落，而在患有多种呼吸道疾病的个体中，这些群落的组成会发生改变。关于其他动物气道微生物群存在情况的数据很少，更好地了解此类细菌群落的组成和代谢功能对于开发用于兽医和人类医学的新型治疗和诊断方法至关重要。基于对16只健康雌性犬的粪便和气道多个水平采集的样本进行的靶向二代测序，我们证明犬气道中存在拓扑连续的微生物群，从上部气道到下部气道，变形菌门物种的相对丰度增加。通过支气管肺泡灌洗（BALF）评估的与肺相关的微生物群在犬之间最为一致，并且由三个不同的分类群主导，其中两个在物种水平上得到解析，一个在科水平上得到解析。使用未观察状态重建的群落系统发育研究（PICRUSt）软件预测的鼻腔、口咽和与肺相关的微生物群的基因含量，提供了有关这些细菌群落在这种营养匮乏、低通量环境中定殖所利用的乙醛酸和柠檬酸循环代谢途径的信息。在健康受试者中产生的这些数据为未来对患病犬气道的分析提供了背景。此外，由于犬与人类具有相似的呼吸解剖结构、生理学和免疫系统，暴露于许多相同的环境刺激下，并且会自发患上相似的呼吸道疾病，这些数据支持将犬用作气道微生物群前瞻性研究的模型物种，其研究结果可转化为人类情况。
