Chen Huarong, Liu Weixin, Coker Olabisi Oluwabukola, Qin Na, Chen Hongyan, Wang Yifei, Liu Xiaodong, Zhang Lin, Choi Gordon Y S, Wong Wai Tat, Leung Czarina C H, Ling Lowell, Hui Mamie, Gin Tony, Wong Sunny Hei, Chan Matthew Tak Vai, Wu William Ka Kei
Department of Anaesthesia and Intensive Care and Peter Hung Pain Research Institute, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.
Institute of Digestive Disease and Department of Medicine and Therapeutics, State Key Laboratory of Digestive Disease, Li Ka Shing Institute of Health Sciences, CUHK Shenzhen Research Institute, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.
Heliyon. 2024 Apr 20;10(8):e29572. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e29572. eCollection 2024 Apr 30.
Sepsis is a life-threatening illness caused by the dysregulated host response to infection. Nevertheless, our current knowledge of the microbial landscape in the blood of septic patients is still limited. Next-generation sequencing (NGS) is a sensitive method to quantitatively characterize microbiomes at various sites of the human body. In this study, we analyzed the blood microbial DNA of 22 adult patients with sepsis and 3 healthy subjects. The presence of non-human DNA was identified in both healthy and septic subjects. Septic patients had a markedly altered microbial DNA profile compared to healthy subjects over α- and β-diversity. Unexpectedly, the patients could be further divided into two subgroups (C1 and C2) based on β-diversity analysis. C1 patients showed much higher bacteria, viruses, fungi, and archaea abundance, and a higher level of α-diversity (Chao1, Observed and Shannon index) than both C2 patients and healthy subjects. The most striking difference was seen in the case of , sp. , , sp. , and , the abundance of which was the highest in the C1 group. Notably, C1 patients had a significantly poorer outcome than C2 patients. Moreover, by analyzing the patterns of microbe-microbe interactions in healthy and septic subjects, we revealed that C1 and C2 patients exhibited distinct co-occurrence and co-exclusion relationships. Together, our study uncovered two distinct microbial signatures in the blood of septic patients. Compositional and ecological analysis of blood microbial DNA may thus be useful in predicting mortality of septic patients.
脓毒症是一种由宿主对感染的失调反应引起的危及生命的疾病。然而，我们目前对脓毒症患者血液中微生物群落的了解仍然有限。下一代测序（NGS）是一种定量表征人体各个部位微生物群落的灵敏方法。在本研究中，我们分析了22名成年脓毒症患者和3名健康受试者的血液微生物DNA。在健康受试者和脓毒症患者中均检测到非人类DNA的存在。与健康受试者相比，脓毒症患者的微生物DNA谱在α和β多样性方面有明显改变。出乎意料的是，根据β多样性分析，患者可进一步分为两个亚组（C1和C2）。C1组患者的细菌、病毒、真菌和古菌丰度更高，α多样性水平（Chao1、Observed和Shannon指数）高于C2组患者和健康受试者。最显著的差异见于[具体菌种名称1]、[具体菌种名称2]、[具体菌种名称3]、[具体菌种名称4]和[具体菌种名称5]，其丰度在C1组中最高。值得注意的是，C1组患者的预后明显比C2组患者差。此外，通过分析健康受试者和脓毒症患者中微生物-微生物相互作用的模式，我们发现C1组和C2组患者表现出不同的共生和互斥关系。总之，我们的研究在脓毒症患者血液中发现了两种不同的微生物特征。因此，血液微生物DNA的组成和生态分析可能有助于预测脓毒症患者的死亡率。
