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. 2021 Oct 4;9(10):2095.
doi: 10.3390/microorganisms9102095.

Conjunctival Sac Microbiome in Infectious Conjunctivitis

Yasser Helmy Mohamed  1 , Masafumi Uematsu  1 , Yoshitomo Morinaga  2 , Hien-Anh Thi Nguyen  3 , Michiko Toizumi  4 , Daisuke Sasaki  2 , Katsunori Yanagihara  2 , Duc-Anh Dang  3 , Takashi Kitaoka  1 , Lay-Myint Yoshida  4
Affiliations

Conjunctival Sac Microbiome in Infectious Conjunctivitis

Yasser Helmy Mohamed et al. Microorganisms. .

Abstract

Acute bacterial conjunctival infections are common, and this study identified the conjunctival bacterial community in infectious conjunctivitis cases seen at the outpatient clinic of Khanh Hoa General Hospital in Nha Trang, Vietnam from October 2016 through December 2017. Conjunctival swabs were collected and tested using conventional culture, PCR, and 16S ribosomal RNA sequencing. The study included 47 randomly selected patients. More than 98% of all DNA reads represented five bacterial phyla. Three of these phyla constituted 92% of all sequences (Firmicutes (35%), Actinobacteria (31%), and Proteobacteria (26%)). At the genus level, there were 12 common genera that constituted about 61% of all sequence reads. Seven of those genera were common (Streptococcus (10%), Cutibacterium (10%), Staphylococcus (7%), Nocardioides (7%), Corynebacterium 1 (5%), Anoxybacillus (5%), and Acinetobacter (5%)), which encompassed 49% of all reads. As for diversity analysis, there was no difference on PERMANOVA analysis (unweighted UniFrac) for sex (p = 0.087), chemosis (p = 0.064), and unclassified eyedrops (p = 0.431). There was a significant difference in cases with bilateral conjunctivitis (p = 0.017) and for using antibiotics (p = 0.020). Of the predominant phyla, Firmicutes had the highest abundance in bacterial conjunctivitis in this study. Pseudomonas as a resident commensal microbiota may have an important role in the prevention of infection.

Keywords: 16S ribosomal DNA sequencing; conjunctival microbiome; infectious conjunctivitis; polymerase chain reaction.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest. The funder had no role in the design of the study, in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data, in the writing of the manuscript, or in the decision to publish the results.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Relative bacterial compositions of conjunctivitis samples. 16S rRNA gene sequences are classified into phylum levels.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Relative bacterial compositions of conjunctivitis samples. 16S rRNA gene sequences are classified into genus levels.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Alpha and beta diversity analysis for unilateral versus bilateral conjunctivitis.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Alpha and beta diversity analysis for group not using versus using antibiotic eye drops.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Relative abundance of each sample at phylum (A), (B) and genus (C), (D) levels as regards use of antibiotics and laterality.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Linear discriminant analysis for antibiotic and bilateral groups (A–E).
Figure 7
Figure 7
Individual metagenomics in four culture-positive cases.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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