Faculty of Medical and Life Sciences, Institute of Precision Medicine, Microbiology and Hygiene Group, Furtwangen University, Villingen-Schwenningen, Germany.
Food Informatics Team, AgResearch Ltd., Palmerston North, New Zealand.
Front Cell Infect Microbiol. 2021 Nov 17;11:745653. doi: 10.3389/fcimb.2021.745653. eCollection 2021.
Slit lamps are routinely used to examine large numbers of patients every day due to high throughput. Previous, cultivation-based results suggested slit lamps to be contaminated with bacteria, mostly coagulase-negative staphylococci, followed by micrococci, bacilli, but also . Our study aimed at obtaining a much more comprehensive, cultivation-independent view of the slit lamp bacteriota and its hygienic relevance, as regularly touched surfaces usually represent fomites, particularly if used by different persons. We performed extensive 16S rRNA gene sequencing to analyse the bacteriota, of 46 slit lamps from two tertiary care centers at two sampling sites, respectively. 82 samples yielded enough sequences for downstream analyses and revealed contamination with bacteria of mostly human skin, mucosa and probably eye origin, predominantly cutibacteria, staphylococci and corynebacteria. The taxonomic assignment of 3369 ASVs (amplicon sequence variants) revealed 19 bacterial phyla and 468 genera across all samples. As antibiotic resistances are of major concern, we screened all samples for methicillin-resistant (MRSA) using qPCR, however, no signals above the detection limit were detected. Our study provides first comprehensive insight into the slit lamp microbiota. It underlines that slit lamps carry a highly diverse, skin-like bacterial microbiota and that thorough cleaning and disinfection after use is highly recommendable to prevent eye and skin infections.
裂隙灯由于高通量而每天例行用于检查大量患者。之前的基于培养的结果表明，裂隙灯受到细菌污染，主要是凝固酶阴性葡萄球菌，其次是微球菌、杆菌，但也有。我们的研究旨在更全面、非培养的了解裂隙灯细菌区系及其卫生相关性，因为经常接触的表面通常代表污染物，特别是如果被不同的人使用。我们分别对来自两个三级护理中心的两个采样点的 46 个裂隙灯进行了广泛的 16S rRNA 基因测序，以分析细菌区系。82 个样本产生了足够的序列进行下游分析，结果显示细菌污染主要来自人体皮肤、粘膜和可能的眼部，主要是放线菌、葡萄球菌和棒状杆菌。3369 个 ASVs（扩增子序列变异）的分类学分配揭示了所有样本中 19 个细菌门和 468 个属。由于抗生素耐药性是一个主要问题，我们使用 qPCR 对所有样本进行了耐甲氧西林金黄色葡萄球菌 (MRSA) 的筛选，但未检测到超过检测限的信号。我们的研究首次全面了解了裂隙灯微生物组。它强调了裂隙灯携带高度多样化的皮肤样细菌微生物组，强烈建议在使用后进行彻底清洁和消毒，以防止眼部和皮肤感染。
