Functional metagenomic profile of the lacrimal sac microbial communities in primary acquired nasolacrimal duct obstruction: The Lacriome paper 2

Abstract

Purpose

To study the functional metagenomic profile of the microbes isolated from the lacrimal sac of patients with primary acquired nasolacrimal duct obstruction.

Methods

A prospective study was performed on 10 consecutive lacrimal sac samples obtained for the metagenomic analysis from patients with primary acquired nasolacrimal duct obstruction ( who underwent endoscopic dacryocystorhinostomy at a tertiary care Dacryology service. The samples were collected intraoperatively soon after a full-length lacrimal sac marsupialization and immediately transported on ice to the laboratory. Following DNA extraction and library preparation, a whole shotgun metagenome sequencing was performed on the Illumina NOVASEQ 6000^TM platform. The downstream processing and bioinformatics of the samples were performed using multiple software packaged in SqueezeMeta^TM pipeline and functional analysis using the MG-RAST^TM pipeline.

Results

The microbial gene mapping and protein prediction demonstrated proteins with known functions to range from 66.41% to 84.03% across the samples. The functional category distribution of Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes ortholog (level 1 data) showed metabolism to be the most commonly involved function followed by environmental information processes, genetic information processes and cellular processes. The functional subsystem profiling demonstrated genes associated with carbohydrate, protein and RNA metabolism, Amino acids and their derivatives, cofactors and prosthetic groups and factors involved in cell structure regulation and cell cycle control.

Conclusion

This is the first functional metagenomic profile of the lacrimal sac microbiota from patients with primary acquired nasolacrimal duct obstruction. Functional analysis has provided newer insights into the ecosystem dynamics and strategies of microbial communities inhabiting the lacrimal sac. Further Lacriome studies may provide clues for better understanding of the disease etiopathogenesis.