A Laboratory Methodology for Dual RNA-Sequencing of Bacteria and their Host Cells In Vitro

Dual RNA-Sequencing leverages established next-generation sequencing (NGS)-enabled RNA-Seq approaches to measure genome-wide transcriptional changes of both an infecting bacteria and host cells. By simultaneously investigating both organisms from the same biological sample, dual RNA-Seq can provide unique insight into bacterial infection processes and reciprocal host responses at once. However, the difficulties involved in handling both prokaryotic and eukaryotic material require distinct, optimized procedures. We previously developed and applied dual RNA-Seq to measure prokaryotic and eukaryotic expression profiles of human cells infected with bacteria, using in vitro Chlamydia-infected epithelial cells as proof of principle. Here we provide a detailed laboratory protocol for in vitro dual RNA-Seq that is readily adaptable to any host-bacteria system of interest

Dual RNA-seq analysis of in vitro infection multiplicity and RNA depletion methods in Chlamydia-infected epithelial cells.

Dual RNA-seq experiments examining viral and bacterial pathogens are increasing, but vary considerably in their experimental designs, such as infection rates and RNA depletion methods. Here, we have applied dual RNA-seq to Chlamydia trachomatis infected epithelial cells to examine transcriptomic responses from both organisms. We compared two time points post infection (1 and 24 h), three multiplicity of infection (MOI) ratios (0.1, 1 and 10) and two RNA depletion methods (rRNA and polyA). Capture of bacterial-specific RNA were greatest when combining rRNA and polyA depletion, and when using a higher MOI. However, under these conditions, host RNA capture was negatively impacted. Although it is tempting to use high infection rates, the implications on host cell survival, the potential reduced length of infection cycles and real world applicability should be considered. This data highlights the delicate nature of balancing host-pathogen RNA capture and will assist future transcriptomic-based studies to achieve more specific and relevant infection-related biological insights

VALENCIA: a nearest centroid classification method for vaginal microbial communities based on composition

BackgroundTaxonomic profiles of vaginal microbial communities can be sorted into a discrete number of categories termed community state types (CSTs). This approach is advantageous because collapsing a hyper-dimensional taxonomic profile into a single categorical variable enables efforts such as data exploration, epidemiological studies, and statistical modeling. Vaginal communities are typically assigned to CSTs based on the results of hierarchical clustering of the pairwise distances between samples. However, this approach is problematic because it complicates between-study comparisons and because the results are entirely dependent on the particular set of samples that were analyzed. We sought to standardize and advance the assignment of samples to CSTs.ResultsWe developed VALENCIA (VAginaL community state typE Nearest CentroId clAssifier), a nearest centroid-based tool which classifies samples based on their similarity to a set of reference centroids. The references were defined using a comprehensive set of 13,160 taxonomic profiles from 1975 women in the USA. This large dataset allowed us to comprehensively identify, define, and characterize vaginal CSTs common to reproductive age women and expand upon the CSTs that had been defined in previous studies. We validated the broad applicability of VALENCIA for the classification of vaginal microbial communities by using it to classify three test datasets which included reproductive age eastern and southern African women, adolescent girls, and a racially/ethnically and geographically diverse sample of postmenopausal women. VALENCIA performed well on all three datasets despite the substantial variations in sequencing strategies and bioinformatics pipelines, indicating its broad application to vaginal microbiota. We further describe the relationships between community characteristics (vaginal pH, Nugent score) and participant demographics (race, age) and the CSTs defined by VALENCIA.ConclusionVALENCIA provides a much-needed solution for the robust and reproducible assignment of vaginal community state types. This will allow unbiased analysis of both small and large vaginal microbiota datasets, comparisons between datasets and meta-analyses that combine multiple datasets. Video abstract

Nonoptimal Vaginal Microbiota after Azithromycin Treatment for Chlamydia trachomatis Infection

International audienceWe characterized the composition and structure of the vaginal microbiota in a cohort of 149 women with genital Chlamydia trachomatis infection at baseline who were followed quarterly for 9 months after antibiotic treatment. At time of diagnosis, the vaginal microbiota was dominated by Lactobacillus iners or a diverse array of bacterial vaginosis-associated bacteria including Gardnerella vaginalis. Interestingly, L. iners-dominated communities were most common after azithromycin treatment (1 g monodose), consistent with the observed relative resistance of L. iners to azithromycin. Lactobacillus iners-dominated communities have been associated with increased risk of C. trachomatis infection, suggesting that the impact of antibiotic treatment on the vaginal microbiota could favor reinfections. These results provide support for the dual need to account for the potential perturbing effect(s) of antibiotic treatment on the vaginal microbiota, and to develop strategies to protect and restore optimal vaginal microbiota

Molecular Characterization of the Human Stomach Microbiota in Gastric Cancer Patients.

Helicobacter pylori (Hp) is the primary cause of gastric cancer but we know little of its relative abundance and other microbes in the stomach, especially at the time of gastric cancer diagnosis. Here we characterized the taxonomic and derived functional profiles of gastric microbiota in two different sets of gastric cancer patients, and compared them with microbial profiles in other body sites. Paired non-malignant and tumor tissues were sampled from 160 gastric cancer patients with 80 from China and 80 from Mexico. The 16S rRNA gene V3-V4 region was sequenced using MiSeq platform for taxonomic profiles. PICRUSt was used to predict functional profiles. Human Microbiome Project was used for comparison. We showed that Hp is the most abundant member of gastric microbiota in both Chinese and Mexican samples (51 and 24%, respectively), followed by oral-associated bacteria. Taxonomic (phylum-level) profiles of stomach microbiota resembled oral microbiota, especially when the Helicobacter reads were removed. The functional profiles of stomach microbiota, however, were distinct from those found in other body sites and had higher inter-subject dissimilarity. Gastric microbiota composition did not differ by Hp colonization status or stomach anatomic sites, but did differ between paired non-malignant and tumor tissues in either Chinese or Mexican samples. Our study showed that Hp is the dominant member of the non-malignant gastric tissue microbiota in many gastric cancer patients. Our results provide insights on the gastric microbiota composition and function in gastric cancer patients, which may have important clinical implications

Molecular Characterization of the Human Stomach Microbiota in Gastric Cancer Patients

Helicobacter pylori (Hp) is the primary cause of gastric cancer but we know little of its relative abundance and other microbes in the stomach, especially at the time of gastric cancer diagnosis. Here we characterized the taxonomic and derived functional profiles of gastric microbiota in two different sets of gastric cancer patients, and compared them with microbial profiles in other body sites. Paired non-malignant and tumor tissues were sampled from 160 gastric cancer patients with 80 from China and 80 from Mexico. The 16S rRNA gene V3–V4 region was sequenced using MiSeq platform for taxonomic profiles. PICRUSt was used to predict functional profiles. Human Microbiome Project was used for comparison. We showed that Hp is the most abundant member of gastric microbiota in both Chinese and Mexican samples (51 and 24%, respectively), followed by oral-associated bacteria. Taxonomic (phylum-level) profiles of stomach microbiota resembled oral microbiota, especially when the Helicobacter reads were removed. The functional profiles of stomach microbiota, however, were distinct from those found in other body sites and had higher inter-subject dissimilarity. Gastric microbiota composition did not differ by Hp colonization status or stomach anatomic sites, but did differ between paired non-malignant and tumor tissues in either Chinese or Mexican samples. Our study showed that Hp is the dominant member of the non-malignant gastric tissue microbiota in many gastric cancer patients. Our results provide insights on the gastric microbiota composition and function in gastric cancer patients, which may have important clinical implications

Chlamydia caviae infection alters abundance but not composition of the guinea pig vaginal microbiota

In humans, the vaginal microbiota is thought to be the first line of defense again pathogens including Chlamydia trachomatis. The guinea pig has been extensively used as a model to study chlamydial infection because it shares anatomical and physiological similarities with humans, such as a squamous vaginal epithelium as well as some of the long-term outcomes caused by chlamydial infection. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the guinea pig-C. caviae model of genital infection as a surrogate for studying the role of the vaginal microbiota in the early steps of C. trachomatis infection in humans. We used culture-independent molecular methods to characterize the relative and absolute abundance of bacterial phylotypes in the guinea pig vaginal microbiota in animals non-infected, mock-infected or infected by C. caviae. We showed that the guinea pig and human vaginal microbiotas are of different bacterial composition and abundance. Chlamydia caviae infection had a profound effect on the absolute abundance of bacterial phylotypes but not on the composition of the guinea pig vaginal microbiota. Our findings compromise the validity of the guinea pig-C. caviae model to study the role of the vaginal microbiota during the early steps of sexually transmitted infection