title: Use of denaturing high-performance liquid chromatography (DHPLC) to characterize the bacterial and fungal airway microbiota of cystic fibrosis patients.
abstract: The aim of this study was to evaluate the use of denaturing high-performance liquid chromatography (DHPLC) to characterize cystic fibrosis (CF) airway microbiota including both bacteria and fungi. DHPLC conditions were first optimized using a mixture of V6, V7 and V8 region 16S rRNA gene PCR amplicons from 18 bacterial species commonly found in CF patients. Then, the microbial diversity of 4 sputum samples from 4 CF patients was analyzed using cultural methods, cloning/sequencing (for bacteria only) and DHPLC peak fraction collection/sequencing. DHPLC analysis allowed identifying more bacterial and fungal species than the classical culture methods, including well-recognized pathogens such as Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Even if a lower number of bacterial Operational Taxonomic Units (OTUs) was identified by DHPLC, it allowed to find OTUs unidentified by cloning/sequencing. The combination of both techniques permitted to correlate the majority of DHPLC peaks to defined OTUs. Finally, although Aspergillus fumigatus detection using DHPLC can still be improved, this technique clearly allowed to identify a higher number of fungal species versus classical culture-based methods. To conclude, DHPLC provided meaningful additional data concerning pathogenic bacteria and fungi as well as fastidious microorganisms present within the CF respiratory tract. DHPLC can be considered as a complementary technique to culture-dependent analyses in routine microbiological laboratories.
authors.affiliation: EA 3882-Laboratoire Universitaire de Biodiversité et Ecologie Microbienne, SFR148 ScInBioS, Université de Brest, Brest, F-29200, France.
authors.forename: Jérôme
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Mounier
authors.forename: Audrey
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Gouëllo
authors.forename: Marlène
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Keravec
authors.forename: Solène
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Le Gal
authors.forename: Grégory
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Pacini
authors.forename: Stella
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Debaets
authors.forename: Gilles
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Nevez
authors.forename: Gilles
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Rault
authors.forename: Georges
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Barbier
authors.forename: Geneviève
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Héry-Arnaud
mesh_terms: D001419:Bacteria / Q000737:chemistry / Q000145:classification / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D001424:Bacterial Infections / Q000382:microbiology*; D044822:Biodiversity; D002853:Chromatography, Liquid / Q000379:methods*; D003550:Cystic Fibrosis / Q000150:complications*; D005658:Fungi / Q000737:chemistry / Q000145:classification / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D006801:Humans; D008828:Microbiological Techniques / Q000379:methods; D009181:Mycoses / Q000382:microbiology*; D013183:Sputum / Q000382:microbiology*