Data from: Correlation between either Cupriavidus or Porphyromonas and primary pulmonary tuberculosis found by analysing the microbiota in patients’ bronchoalveolar lavage fluid

Pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) has gained attention in recent decades because of its rising incidence trend; simultaneously, increasing numbers of studies have identified the relationship between microbiota and chronic infectious diseases. In our work, we enrolled 32 patients with primary TB characterised by unilateral TB lesion formation diagnosed by chest radiographic exam. Bronchoalveolar lavage fluid was taken from both lungs. Twenty-four healthy people were chosen as controls. Pyrosequencing was performed on the V3 hypervariable region of 16S rDNA in all bacterial samples and used as a culture-independent method to describe the phylogenetic composition of the microbiota. Through pyrosequencing, 271,764 amplicons were detected in samples and analysed using tools in the Ribosomal Database Project (RDP) and bioinformatics. These analyses revealed significant differences in the microbiota in the lower respiratory tract (LRT) of TB patients compared with healthy controls; in contrast, the microbiota of intra/extra-TB lesions were similar. These results showed that the dominant bacterial genus in the LRT of TB patients was Cupriavidus and not Streptococcus, which resulted in a significant change in the microbiota in TB patients. The abundance of Mycobacteria and Porphyromonas significantly increased inside TB lesions when compared with non-lesion-containing contralateral lungs. From these data, it can be concluded that Cupriavidus plays an important role in TB’s secondary infection and that in addition to Mycobacteria, Porphyromonas may also be a co-factor in lesion formation. The mechanisms underlying this connection warrant further research.

近数十年来，肺结核（Pulmonary tuberculosis, TB）因其发病率呈上升趋势而受到广泛关注；与此同时，越来越多的研究揭示了微生物群（microbiota）与慢性传染性疾病之间的关联。本研究纳入32例经胸部放射学检查（chest radiographic exam）确诊为单侧结核病灶形成的原发性肺结核患者，为其采集双肺支气管肺泡灌洗液（Bronchoalveolar lavage fluid）样本，并选取24名健康人群作为对照。对所有细菌样本的16S核糖体DNA（16S rDNA）V3高变区进行焦磷酸测序（Pyrosequencing），以此作为非培养方法来描述微生物群的系统发育组成。通过焦磷酸测序，共在样本中检测到271764条扩增子（amplicons），并借助核糖体数据库项目（Ribosomal Database Project, RDP）的工具及生物信息学手段进行分析。分析结果显示，与健康对照相比，肺结核患者下呼吸道（lower respiratory tract, LRT）的微生物群存在显著差异；相比之下，结核病灶内外的微生物群并无明显差异。研究结果表明，肺结核患者下呼吸道的优势菌属为贪铜菌属（Cupriavidus）而非链球菌属（Streptococcus），这使得肺结核患者的微生物群发生了显著改变。与未含病灶的对侧肺组织相比，结核病灶内分枝杆菌属（Mycobacteria）和卟啉单胞菌属（Porphyromonas）的丰度显著升高。基于上述数据可得出结论：贪铜菌属在肺结核的继发感染中发挥重要作用；除分枝杆菌属外，卟啉单胞菌属或许也可作为病灶形成的辅助因子。这一关联背后的分子机制仍有待进一步研究。