necrotising soft tissue infections

Shotgun metagenomics (SM) reached higher sensitivity compared with 16S rRNA gene, and a better ability to detect anaerobic bacteria compared with culture. As a result, a significant proportion of infections with bacteria such as Pasteurella multocida or Clostridium perfringens were only detected by SM. In addition, SM bacterial quantification enabled the detection of lower amounts of bacterial DNA from healthy tissues compared with the macroscopically “healthy” ones, suggesting a subclinical infectious extension.