Integrated analysis of microbiome and host transcriptome unveils correlations between lung microbiota and host immunity in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid of pneumocystis pneumonia patients

Objective: Studies indicate that the lung microbiota of patients with pulmonary diseases is disrupted and impacts the immunity. Little is known about the microbiological and immune landscape of the lungs in Pneumocystis pneumonia (PCP) patients. We aimed to explore the interaction between the lung microbiota and immunity in PCP through multi-omics analysis.Methods: We conducted an observational cohort study to characterize the lung microbiota (via 16S rRNA gene sequencing) and immune (via RNA-sequencing) on bronchoalveolar lavage fluid samples in 59 pulmonary infection patients. Spearman correlation analysis was performed to assess the correlation between the differential species and the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) related to the MAPK signaling pathway.