The Respiratory Virome in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

Abstract

Aim: To characterize the respiratory virome in moderate/severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients using metagenomics, with healthy subjects as the reference. Patients & Methods: Sputum COPD samples were collected during stability and exacerbations with negative usual-care microbiologic analysis. Results: Eukaryotic viruses from the Anelloviridae, Herpesviridae and Retroviridae families and phages from the Shiphoviridae family were commonly found in COPD, and the respiratory virome in stability and noninfectious exacerbations showed a substantial similarity. DNA viruses with the highest relative abundance in COPD are Anelloviridae. Conclusion: These results support a colonizing role for eukaryotic viruses in COPD and highlight the importance of analyzing both DNA and RNA viruses when focusing on the respiratory virome.

Keywords: :

• chronic obstructive disease
• metagenomics
• virome

Acknowledgements

CIBER de Enfermedades Respiratorias (CIBERES) and CIBER de Epidemiología y Salud Publica (CIBERESP) is an initiative of Spains’s Health research institute, Instituto de Salud Carlos III. IGTP is included in the CERCA programme/Generalitat de Catalunya.

Financial & competing interests disclosure

The present study was partly funded by Fundació Catalana de Pneumologia (FUCAP), Sociedad Catalana de Neumología (SOCAP), Sociedad Española de Neumología y Cirugía Torácica (SEPAR), Fundació Marató TV3, Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad (Spain; SAF2012–311879), Generalitat Valenciana (Spain; Prometeo/2009/092), and an unrestricted Menarini grant. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.

Ethical conduct of research

The Sabadell Hospital Ethics Committee approved the study (reference number: 2005/520) and patients gave informed consent before inclusion.