Metagenomic analysis of oropharyngeal microbiota in patients with different phenotypes of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
Background. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is characterized by progressive limitation of airflow rate of the respiratory tract to noxious particles. It is shown that FEV<sub>1</sub>, which characterizes the speed limit airflow, not allows with high probability to predict the rate of progression of COPD. Aims. To characterize the features of the taxonomic composition ща oropharyngeal microbiota in patients with COPD. Materials and methods. The study included 98 patients with COPD. On each of 2 visits, according to the study protocol, aft patients were conducted clinical and functional examination. In addition, at the first visit, during stable period of disease, smears were collected. The taxonomic identification of microbiota was carried out using sequence analysis of conservative sites of bacterial 16S pRNA. To determine the taxonomic differences between groups of samples a method based on linear regression analysis, adjusted for metagenomic data, was applied. For assessment of the trends in changing the microbiota under influence of frequency of exacerbations and dyspnea generalized linear model was used. Results. The results of the study demonstrated a number of significant differences in the ratio of its various microbes, depending on the clinical and functional characteristics of COPD, including the frequency of exacerbations, dyspnea and COPD phenotype.