Microbiome shows COPD subtypes

The findings lay the foundations for a more personalised treatment of the disorder that mostly affects smokers. “COPD has various subtypes that can be verified by use of quantitative computer tomography (qCT),” explains Wolfgang zu Castell, Head of the Research Unit Scientific Computing (ASC) at the Helmholtz Centre Munich. “We wanted to investigate if the microbiome in the lungs changes in a way that depends on these subtypes,” adds his collegue Michael Schloter, who leads the Unit for Comparative Microbiome Analyses (COMI).

Comparing samples from healthy volunteers and COPD patients by quantitative CT, the members of the EvA Consortium (Emphysema versus Airways Disease) were able to assign patients to different COPD subtypes and link these to the composition of the lung microbiome, obtained by metagenomic analyses of brush samples. 

According to the researchers, Streptococci are often found in structurally altered lungs. In the lungs of healthy subjects, on the other hand, there was an increased presence of the genus Prevotella, to which a number of probiotic characteristics have been attributed.

The specific alterations in the lung microbiome pattern could lead medical decision making concerning administration of antibiotics or glucocorticoids in the various COPD subtypes.