The lung microbiota in nontuberculous mycobacterial pulmonary disease

The role of bacterial microbiota in the pathogenesis of nontuberculous mycobacterial pulmonary disease (NTM-PD) is unclear. We aimed to compare the bacterial microbiome of disease-invaded lesions and non-invaded lung tissue from NTM-PD patients.

We analyzed lung tissues from 23 NTM-PD patients who underwent surgical lung resection. Lung tissues were collected in pairs from each patient, with one sample from a disease-involved site and the other from a non-involved site. Lung tissue microbiome libraries were constructed using 16S rRNA gene sequences (V3-V4 regions).

Sixteen (70%) patients had Mycobacterium avium complex (MAC)-PD, and the remaining seven (30%) had Mycobacterium abscessus-PD. Compared to non-involved sites, involved sites showed greater species richness (ACE, Chao1, and Jackknife analyses, all p = 0.001); greater diversity on the Shannon index (p = 0.007); and genus-level differences (Jensen-Shannon, PERMANOVA p = 0.001). Analysis of taxonomic biomarkers using linear discriminant analysis (LDA) effect sizes (LEfSe) demonstrated that several genera, including Limnohabitans, Rahnella, Lachnospira, Flavobacterium, Megamonas, Gaiella, Subdoligranulum, Rheinheimera, Dorea, Collinsella, and Phascolarctobacterium, had significantly greater abundance in involved sites (LDA >3.00, p <0.05, and q <0.05). In contrast, Acinetobacter had significantly greater abundance at non-involved sites (LDA = 4.27, p<0.001, and q = 0.002). Several genera were differentially distributed between lung tissues from MAC-PD (n = 16) and M. abscessus-PD (n = 7), and between nodular bronchiectatic form (n = 12) and fibrocavitary form (n = 11) patients. However, there was no genus with a significant q-value.

We identified differential microbial distributions between disease-invaded and normal lung tissues from NTM-PD patients, and microbial diversity was significantly higher in disease-invaded tissues.

Clinical Trial registration number: NCT00970801.