Investigation of dynamic microbial migration patterns in the respiratory tract

Area of Science:

• Microbiology
• Infectious Diseases
• Genomics

Background:

• The respiratory microbiome's role in lung diseases is gaining recognition.
• Understanding pathogen migration within the respiratory tract is crucial for clinical management.
• Current evidence on respiratory pathogen migration is limited.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate pathogen migration patterns within the respiratory tract.
• To analyze respiratory microbial diversity in patients with suspected lower respiratory tract infections (LRTI).
• To explore the relationship between the respiratory microbiome and LRTI.

Main Methods:

• Prospective collection of oropharyngeal swabs (OPS), sputum, and bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF).
• Metagenomic next-generation sequencing (mNGS) for microbial diversity analysis.
• Bayesian source tracking and sequence alignment for pathogen migration analysis.

Main Results:

• A significant difference in respiratory microbiome diversity was found between infected and non-infected patients (p < 0.05).
• Pathogen migration was significantly higher (51.54%) than overall microbial community migration (1.92%) (p < 0.05).
• Microbial community structure showed no significant variation across different respiratory tract sites within individuals.

Conclusions:

• This study pioneers pathogen migration pattern deduction using microbial source tracking.
• Findings offer novel insights into respiratory infection pathogenesis.
• Results can advance clinical diagnostics and therapeutic strategies for respiratory infections.