[Microorganisms in the urethral secretions of chronic prostatitis patients: A genomic analysis]

To investigate the differences in the microbial floras in the urethral secretions of the patients with chronic prostatitis to provide some reliable pathogenic evidence for the diagnosis and treatment of the disease.

Using high-throughput second-generation sequencing technology, we detected the microorganisms in the urethral secretions from 33 chronic prostatitis patients and 30 normal healthy males. We analyzed the significant differences in the microbial flora between the two groups via the rank-sum test and performed data processing with the bioinformatics software, P < 0.05 considered as with statistically significant difference.

Statistically significant differences were observed in 17 kinds of bacteria from the urethral secretions between the normal healthy controls and chronic prostatitis patients. LEfSe analysis showed that the microorganisms with most significant abundance difference in the urethral secretions of the chronic prostatitis patients included micrococcaceae, coriobacteriaceae, coriobacteriales, coriobacteriia, weeksellaceae, comamonadaceae, enterobacteriaceae, enterobacteriales, xanthomonadaceae, and xanthomonadales. Principal component analysis (PCA) revealed significant difference in the microbial composition between the two groups.

There is a certain correlation between chronic prostatitis and changes in the composition of urethral microbial floras. Chronic prostatitis may result from concerted action of multiple microbes rather than a single one.