Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Unique Microbial Communities Persist In Individual Cystic Fibrosis Patients Throughout A Clinical Exacerbation, Katherine E. Price, Thomas H. Hampton, Alex H. Gifford, Emily L. Dolben, Deborah A. Hogan, Hilary G. Morrison, Mitchell L. Sogin, George A. O’Tooled

Dartmouth Scholarship

Cystic fibrosis (CF) is caused by inherited mutations in the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator gene and results in a lung environment that is highly conducive to polymicrobial infection. Over a lifetime, decreasing bacterial diversity and the presence of Pseudomonas aeruginosa in the lung are correlated with worsening lung disease. However, to date, no change in community diversity, overall microbial load or individual microbes has been shown to correlate with the onset of an acute exacerbation in CF patients. We followed 17 adult CF patients throughout the course of clinical exacerbation, treatment and recovery, using deep sequencing and quantitative PCR …