Abstract
Background Although the study of respiratory microbiota has been an active field of research, obtaining the appropriate respiratory samples for healthy controls remains to be a challenge. As such, this study aims to evaluate the use of endotracheal tube washing as a viable control for sputum samples. Methods A total of 14 subjects, including 8 healthy respiratory controls and 6 diabetic patients without any respiratory disease, were enrolled in this study, during which the endotracheal tubes used in their scheduled routine surgery were collected. Pre-operative oral gargles were also collected from non-diabetic subjects. Results 16S amplicon sequencing revealed similar taxa composition in endotracheal tube washings and oral gargles in the healthy control subjects, although the relative abundance of 11 genus level operational taxonomic units was significantly different between the two sample sources. The diabetic subjects showed relatively lower diversity than those of non-diabetic subjects. The proportion range of the most abundant taxa detected in each endotracheal tube washings were 10.1–33.2%. Conclusion Endotracheal tube washing fluid may provide healthy control samples for upper respiratory investigations without incurring any additional risk to the subject.
Original language | English |
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Article number | e0259596 |
Journal | PLoS ONE |
Volume | 16 |
Issue number | 11 November |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Nov 2021 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2021 Cho et al.This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.