The use of culture-independent tools to characterize bacteria in endo-tracheal aspirates from pre-term infants at risk of bronchopulmonary dysplasia

Stressmann, F.A., Connett, G.J., Goss, K., Kollamparambil, T.G., Patel, N., Payne, M.S., Puddy, V., Legg, J., Bruce, K.D. and Rogers, G.B. (2010) The use of culture-independent tools to characterize bacteria in endo-tracheal aspirates from pre-term infants at risk of bronchopulmonary dysplasia. Journal of Perinatal Medicine, 38 (3), 333-337. (doi:10.1515/JPM.2010.026). (PMID:20121490)

Abstract

Although premature infants are increasingly surviving the neonatal period, up to one-third develop bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD). Despite evidence that bacterial colonization of the neonatal respiratory tract by certain bacteria may be a risk factor in BPD development, little is known about the role these bacteria play. The aim of this study was to investigate the use of culture-independent molecular profiling methodologies to identify potential etiological agents in neonatal airway secretions. This study used terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism (T-RFLP) and clone sequence analyses to characterize bacterial species in endo-tracheal (ET) aspirates from eight intubated pre-term infants. A wide range of different bacteria was identified in the samples. Forty-seven T-RF band lengths were resolved in the sample set, with a range of 0-15 separate species in each patient. Clone sequence analyses confirmed the identity of individual species detected by T-RFLP. We speculate that the identification of known opportunistic pathogens including S. aureus, Enterobacter sp., Moraxella catarrhalis, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Streptococcus sp., within the airways of pre-term infants, might be causally related to the subsequent development of BPD. Further, we suggest that culture-independent techniques, such as T-RFLP, hold important potential for the characterization of neonatal conditions, such as BPD.

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Contributors

Author: G.J. Connett

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