Comparative gut microbiota and resistome profiling of intensive care patients receiving selective digestive tract decontamination and healthy subjects.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The gut microbiota is a reservoir of opportunistic pathogens that can cause life-threatening infections in critically ill patients during their stay in an intensive care unit (ICU). To suppress gut colonization with opportunistic pathogens, a prophylactic antibiotic regimen, termed "selective decontamination of the digestive tract" (SDD), is used in some countries where it improves clinical outcome in ICU patients. Yet, the impact of ICU hospitalization and SDD on the gut microbiota remains largely unknown. Here, we characterize the composition of the gut microbiota and its antimicrobial resistance genes ("the resistome") of ICU patients during SDD and of healthy subjects.

Results

From ten patients that were acutely admitted to the ICU, 30 fecal samples were colle

SUBMITTER: Buelow E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5554972 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature