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Updated: Dec 10, 2025
Purifying the Impure: Sequencing Metagenomes and Metatranscriptomes from Complex Animal-associated Samples
Published on: December 22, 2014
Blood and Bronchoalveolar Lavage Fluid Metagenomic Next-Generation Sequencing in Pneumonia
Xu Chen1,2,3, Shuizi Ding1,2,3, Cheng Lei1,2,3
1Department of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, The Second Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha, Hunan 410011, China.
Background:
Metagenomic next-generation sequencing (mNGS) has made a revolution in the mode of pathogen identification. We decided to explore the diagnostic value of blood and bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) as mNGS samples in pneumonia.
Methods:
We retrospectively reviewed 467 mNGS results and assessed the diagnostic performance of paired blood and BALF mNGS in 39 patients with pneumonia.
Results:
For bacteria and fungi, 16 patients had culture-confirmed pathogen diagnosis, while 13 patients were culture-negative. BALF mNGS was more sensitive than blood mNGS (81.3% vs. 25.0%, p=0.003), and the specificity in BALF and blood mNGS was not statistically significant different (76.9% vs. 84.6%, p=0.317). For 10 patients without culture test, treatments were changed in 2 patients. For viruses, Epstein-Barr virus was positive in blood mNGS in 9 patients. Human adenovirus was detected in both BALF and blood mNGS in 3 patients.
Conclusion:
Our study suggests that BALF mNGS is more sensitive than blood mNGS in detecting bacteria and fungi, but blood also has advantages to identify the pathogens of pneumonia, especially for some viruses.
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