The lung microbiome in patients with pneumocystosis

J. Kehrmann, B. Veckollari, D. Schmidt, O. Schildgen, V. Schildgen, N. Wagner, M. Zeschnigk, L. Klein-Hitpass, O. Witzke, J. Buer, J. Steinmann

Pneumocystis jirovecii pneumonia (PCP) is an opportunistic fungal infection that is associated with a high morbidity and mortality in immunocompromised individuals. In this study, we analysed the microbiome of the lower respiratory tract from critically ill intensive care unit patients with and without pneumocystosis. Broncho-alveolar fluids from 65 intubated and mechanically ventilated intensive care unit patients (34 PCP+ and 31 PCP- patients) were collected. Sequence analysis of bacterial 16S rRNA gene V3/V4 regions was performed to study the composition of the respiratory microbiome using the Illumina MiSeq platform. Differences in the microbial composition detected between PCP+ and PCP- patients were not statistically significant on class, order, family and genus level. In addition, alpha and beta diversity metrics did not reveal significant differences between PCP+ and PCP- patients. The composition of the lung microbiota was highly variable between PCP+ patients and comparable in its variety with the microbiota composition of the heterogeneous collective of PCP- patients. The lower respiratory tract microbiome in patients with pneumocystosis does not appear to be determined by a specific microbial composition or to be dominated by a single bacterial species.