Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Comparative Study
. 2014 Mar;52(3):871-6.
doi: 10.1128/JCM.02876-13. Epub 2013 Dec 26.

Urine is not sterile: use of enhanced urine culture techniques to detect resident bacterial flora in the adult female bladder

Affiliations
Comparative Study

Urine is not sterile: use of enhanced urine culture techniques to detect resident bacterial flora in the adult female bladder

Evann E Hilt et al. J Clin Microbiol. 2014 Mar.

Abstract

Our previous study showed that bacterial genomes can be identified using 16S rRNA sequencing in urine specimens of both symptomatic and asymptomatic patients who are culture negative according to standard urine culture protocols. In the present study, we used a modified culture protocol that included plating larger volumes of urine, incubation under varied atmospheric conditions, and prolonged incubation times to demonstrate that many of the organisms identified in urine by 16S rRNA gene sequencing are, in fact, cultivable using an expanded quantitative urine culture (EQUC) protocol. Sixty-five urine specimens (from 41 patients with overactive bladder and 24 controls) were examined using both the standard and EQUC culture techniques. Fifty-two of the 65 urine samples (80%) grew bacterial species using EQUC, while the majority of these (48/52 [92%]) were reported as no growth at 10(3) CFU/ml by the clinical microbiology laboratory using the standard urine culture protocol. Thirty-five different genera and 85 different species were identified by EQUC. The most prevalent genera isolated were Lactobacillus (15%), followed by Corynebacterium (14.2%), Streptococcus (11.9%), Actinomyces (6.9%), and Staphylococcus (6.9%). Other genera commonly isolated include Aerococcus, Gardnerella, Bifidobacterium, and Actinobaculum. Our current study demonstrates that urine contains communities of living bacteria that comprise a resident female urine microbiota.

Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT01642277.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

FIG 1
FIG 1
Percentages of detection of each genus normalized to the total organism isolated from the OAB patients (black bars, n = 212 isolates from 34 of 41 participants) or the controls (white bars, n = 48 isolates from 18 of 24 participants).

Comment in

References

    1. Stewart W, Van Rooyen J, Cundiff G, Abrams P, Herzog A, Corey R, Hunt T, Wein A. 2003. Prevalence and burden of overactive bladder in the United States. World J. Urol. 20:327–336. 10.1007/s00345-002-0301-4 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Nitti VW, Kopp Z, Lin AT, Moore KH, Oefelein M, Mills IW. 2010. Can. we predict which patient will fail drug treatment for overactive bladder? A think tank discussion. Neurourol. Urodyn. 29:652–657. 10.1002/nau.20910 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Nelson DE, Dong Q, Van der Pol B, Toh E, Fan B, Katz BP, Mi D, Rong R, Weinstock GM, Sodergren E, Fortenberry JD. 2012. Bacterial communities of the coronal sulcus and distal urethra of adolescent males. PLoS One 7:e36298. 10.1371/journal.pone.0036298 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Wolfe AJ, Toh E, Shibata N, Rong R, Kenton K, Fitzgerald M, Mueller ER, Schreckenberger P, Dong Q, Nelson DE, Brubaker L. 2012. Evidence of uncultivated bacteria in the adult female bladder. J. Clin. Microbiol. 50:1376–1383. 10.1128/JCM.05852-11 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Fouts DE, Pieper R, Szpakowski S, Pohl H, Knoblach S, Suh MJ, Huang ST, Ljungberg I, Sprague BM, Lucas SK, Torralba M, Nelson KE, Groah SL. 2012. Integrated next-generation sequencing of 16S rDNA and metaproteomics differentiate the healthy urine microbiome from asymptomatic bacteriuria in neuropathic bladder associated with spinal cord injury. J. Transl. Med. 10:174. 10.1186/1479-5876-10-174 - DOI - PMC - PubMed

Publication types

Associated data