Abstract:

Objective To investigate the composition in bacterial microbial composition in silicosis pa⁃ tients with different stages. Methods 13 healthy subjects，29 patients with occupational silicosis，including 6 pa⁃ tients with silicosis I，15 patients with silicosis Ⅱ and 8 patients with silicosis Ⅲ. The sputum of four groups of subjects was collected，16S rDNA sequencing technology was used to detect bacterial microorganisms in the spu⁃ tum samples，and the relative abundance of bacterial microorganisms and the difference of microbial diversity in⁃ dex（alpha diversity index，beta diversity index）were analyzed；the subject working characteristic curve（ROC） was drawn to assess whether bacterial microorganisms have the potential of biomarkers. Results The relative abun⁃ dance of Neisseria，Moraxella，Staphylococcus，Corynebacterium，Dolosigranulum and Treponema in sputum sam⁃ ples of subjects（P values < 0.05）. The results of the LEfSe analysis showed that，the increased species in the sili⁃ cosis I group include Pseudomonadales，Neisseriaceae，Moraxellaceae，and Neisseria. The additional species in⁃ cluded in the silicosis Ⅱ group were Staphyloccaceae Bacillaceae，Bacillus，Staphylococcus，and Staphylococ⁃ cus_aureus. The ROC analysis showed that the area using Neisseria relative abundance of silicosis Ⅰ and silicosis Ⅱ was 0.87（95% confidence 0.71～0.99），sensitivity = 100.0%，specificity = 73.3%，Youden index = 0.73， P = 0.01. Conclusion Neisseria may be related to the disease process in patients with silicosisis and have the po⁃ tential as a biomarker for distinguishing the silicosis stage.

Key words:

silicosis, bacteria, microbiome, high?throughput sequencing