The culturome of the human nose habitats reveals individual bacterial fingerprint patterns

Abstract

Summary: The complex anatomy of the human nose might offer distinct microbial niches. Microbiota composition may affect nose inflammatory diseases and S taphylococcus aureus carriage. Considering different nasal cavity locations, microbial colonization was analysed across individuals exhibiting chronic nasal inflammatory diseases ( n = 18) and those without local inflammation signs ( n = 16). Samples were collected systematically during surgery and examined by an extensive culture‐based approach and, for a subset, by 16 S rRNA gene community profiling. Cultivation yielded 141 taxa with members of S taphylococcus , C orynebacterium and P ropionibacterium as most common isolates comprising the nasal core culturome together with F inegoldia magna . S taphylococcus aureus was most frequently found in association with S taphylococcus epidermidis and P ropionibacterium acnes , and the posterior vestibules were redefined as S . aureus ' principle habitat. Culturome analysis revealed host‐specific bacterial ‘fingerprints’ irrespective of host‐driven factors or intranasal sites. Comparisons between cultivable and molecular fingerprints demonstrated that only a small fraction of phylotypes (6.2%) was correlated. While the total number of different phylotypes was higher in the molecular dataset, the total number of identifications down to the species level was higher in the culturomic approach. To determine host‐specific microbiomes, the advantages of molecular approaches should be combined with the resolution and reliability of species identification by culturomic analyses.