Metabolic Modeling of Cystic Fibrosis Airway Communities Predicts Mechanisms of Pathogen Dominance.

ABSTRACT: Cystic fibrosis (CF) is a fatal genetic disease characterized by chronic lung infections due to aberrant mucus production and the inability to clear invading pathogens. The traditional view that CF infections are caused by a single pathogen has been replaced by the realization that the CF lung usually is colonized by a complex community of bacteria, fungi, and viruses. To help unravel the complex interplay between the CF lung environment and the infecting microbial community, we developed a community metabolic model comprised of the 17 most abundant bacterial taxa, which account for >95% of reads across samples, from three published studies in which 75 sputum samples from 46 adult CF patients were analyzed by 16S rRNA gene sequencing. The community model was able to correctly predict high

SUBMITTER: Henson MA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6478966 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Mar-Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature