,.
, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci. 2020 Feb 7;61(2):47. doi: 10.1167/iovs.61.2.47.
Microbial ecosystems interact with the human body and affect human health. The microbial community on the ocular surface remains an underexplored territory despite its importance as the first line of defense barrier that protects the eye and ultimately sight. We investigated how age and sex affected human ocular surface microbiome, and in the present study wanted to understand how geographic difference shaped the microbiome in the ocular surface.
We collected conjunctival specimens of 172 eyes from 86 healthy volunteers living in three Chinese cities, namely, Guangzhou, Wenzhou, and Beijing. Using the direct metagenomic shotgun sequencing approach, we characterized how geographic difference affected the human ocular microbiome.
We surveyed the taxonomic composition and metabolic function of the microbiota on human ocular surface. We showed that the ocular surface microbiota was composed of bacteria, viruses, and fungi. A geographical difference in both composition and function of the conjunctival microbiome suggests that the environment people lived in shapes their conjunctival microbiome, especially the dominate species.
Our study provides a reference catalog of the healthy conjunctival metagenome and raises a concern for environmental influences on the ocular surface microbiome.
微生物生态系统与人体相互作用，影响人类健康。尽管眼表微生物群落作为保护眼睛、最终保护视力的第一道防线非常重要，但它仍然是一个尚未充分探索的领域。我们研究了年龄和性别如何影响人类眼表微生物组，在本研究中，我们想了解地理差异如何塑造眼表微生物组。
我们收集了来自居住在中国三个城市（广州、温州和北京）的 86 名健康志愿者的 172 份结膜标本。使用直接宏基因组 shotgun 测序方法，我们分析了地理差异如何影响人类眼表微生物组。
我们调查了人眼表微生物群的分类组成和代谢功能。结果表明，眼表微生物群由细菌、病毒和真菌组成。结膜微生物组在组成和功能上存在地理差异，表明人们生活的环境塑造了他们的结膜微生物组，尤其是优势物种。
我们的研究提供了健康结膜宏基因组的参考目录，并引起了对环境对眼表微生物组影响的关注。
