Human pharyngeal microbiota in age-related macular degeneration.

ABSTRACT:

Background

While the aetiology of age-related macular degeneration (AMD)-a major blinding disease-remains unknown, the disease is strongly associated with variants in the complement factor H (CFH) gene. CFH variants also confer susceptibility to invasive infection with several bacterial colonizers of the nasopharyngeal mucosa. This shared susceptibility locus implicates complement deregulation as a common disease mechanism, and suggests the possibility that microbial interactions with host complement may trigger AMD. In this study, we address this possibility by testing the hypothesis that AMD is associated with specific microbial colonization of the human nasopharynx.

Results

High-throughput Illumina sequencing of the V3-V6 region of the microbial 16S ribosomal RNA gene was

SUBMITTER: Ho EXP 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6082546 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature