You are here

Article Text

Article menu

Download PDFPDF

Pleural disease: not so benign
S13 The microbiology of pleural infection, an approach based on 16s RRNA gene next generation sequencing
Free
  1. NI Kanellakis1,
  2. E Bedawi1,
  3. JP Corcoran1,
  4. S Gerry2,
  5. R Hallifax1,
  6. R Mercer1,
  7. V George1,
  8. A Dudina1,
  9. JM Wrightson1,
  10. R Asciak1,
  11. R Miller3,
  12. M Dobson1,
  13. N Ilott4,
  14. NA Maskell5,
  15. I Psallidas1,
  16. NM Rahman1
  1. 1Oxford Centre for Respiratory Medicine, Churchill Hospital, Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Oxford, UK
  2. 2Centre for Statistics in Medicine, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
  3. 3Infection and Population Health Institute for Global Health, University College London, London, UK
  4. 4Oxford Centre for Microbiological Studies, Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
  5. 5Academic Respiratory Unit, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK

Abstract

Background Pleural infection (PI) is a common and complicated disease, bearing a heavy healthcare burden worldwide. Definitive pathogen identification based on current methods occurs in only 40% of cases, mainly due to prior antibiotic administration and special bacterial nutritional culture requirements. To this end PI microbiology knowledge remains incomplete. Novel deep sequencing techniques could increase the rate of reliable pathogen identification and shed light on the complex polymicrobial patterns of PI.

Aim To investigate and further characterise the microbial nature of PI using next generation sequencing (NGS).

Methods Pleural fluid samples from the ‘Pleural Infection Longitudinal Outcome Study’ (PILOT, ISRCTN50236700, n=243) underwent bacterial DNA extraction followed by 16S rRNA NGS using Illumina MiSeq. Data were analysed with DADA2 and Phyloseq R packages.

Results Bacterial DNA from pleural fluid samples was successfully extracted and sequenced. NGS detected 391 diverse pathogens up to the genus level and analysis showed that PI is a polymicrobial disease. 131 (54%) samples had one pathogen with relative abundance over 50% and 89 (36%) samples had at least 3 pathogens with relative abundance over 10%. Streptococcus Pneumoniae was detected in 40 (16%) and Staphylococcus Aureus in 20 (8%) samples.

Discussion It is feasible to extract and sequence bacterial DNA from pleural fluid samples from patients with PI. 16S rRNA NGS is a robust method for investigating the total bacteriology of pleural fluid samples.

Funding National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Oxford Biomedical Research Centre (BRC).

https://doi.org/10.1136/thorax-2019-BTSabstracts2019.19

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.