Genomic Analysis of Complex Microbial Communities in Wounds.

摘要

Culture-based and molecular-based studies highlight the diversity of bacterial pathogens in non-healing wounds, but these diverse bacterial communities have yet to be fully characterized. An enhanced understanding of the complex wound microbial communities is crucial to the development of next- generation wound diagnostics and therapeutics. The purpose of this project is to develop and apply cutting-edge molecular technologies to characterize wound microbiota in a non-biased, culture-independent fashion. To date we have: 1) Developed and applied a rapid, qPCR-based method for assessing bacterial load in wounds; 2) Developed and applied a novel, culture-independent pyrosequencing approach to characterize bacterial communities in wounds; 3) Pioneered an ecological-based statistical approach for analyzing microbial communities in a clinical context; 4) Revealed association between antibiotic therapy and increased Pseudomonas colonization in chronic wounds; and 5) Revealed association between diabetes and Streptococcus colonization in chronic wounds. We expect that our advances will facilitate a deeper understanding of the role of microbial colonization in wound healing and lead to more evidence-based wound therapies in the future.