Tangedal S, et al. – The researchers performed this work to compare microbiota in induced and spontaneous sputum from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients sampled during the same consultation. They suggested that when studying microbiota in sputum samples one should take into consideration how samples are gathered and avoid the usage of both induced and spontaneous sputum in the same study.

Methods

• For this study, COPD patients from Bergen, Norway, were followed between 2006/2010, analyzed during the stable state and exacerbations.
• Thirty patients delivered 36 sample pairs.
• By enzymatic and mechanical lysis methods, DNA was extracted.
• The V3-V4 region of the 16S rRNA gene was PCR-amplified and prepared for paired-end sequencing.
• Illumina Miseq System was utilized for sequencing, and Quantitative Insights Into Microbial Ecology (QIIME) and Stata were utilized for bioinformatics and statistical analyses.

Results

• Around 4 million sequences were sorted into 1004 different OTUs and further assigned to 106 different taxa.
• Findings revealed that pair-wise comparison of both taxonomic composition and beta-diversity showed significant differences in one or both parameters in 1/3 of sample pairs.
• It was noted that alpha-diversity did not differ.
• Comparing abundances for each taxa identified, demonstrated statistically significant differences between the mean abundances in induced versus spontaneous samples for 15 taxa when disease state was considered.
• This involved potential pathogens like Haemophilus and Moraxella.