RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 Comparative investigation of the Diabetic foot ulcer microbiome JF bioRxiv FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory SP 2021.01.21.427721 DO 10.1101/2021.01.21.427721 A1 Saeb, Amr T. M. A1 Tayeb, Hamsa T. A1 Ouizi, Samir A1 Nassar, Majed S. A1 Alfadda, Assim A1 Raja G. K, Udaya A1 Mani, Balavenkatesh A1 Youssef, Amira A1 Alsuabeyl, Mohammed S. YR 2021 UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/01/22/2021.01.21.427721.abstract AB Background Many factors may affect wound healing in Diabetic foot ulcer, namely, microbial density, microorganisms, microbial synergy, the host immune response, and infected tissue quality.Methodology This study used a cross-sectional design. We assessed 38 Subjects with DFUs, 23 neuroischaimic, and 15 neuropathic, for microbiota colonizing the DFU utilizing traditional cultures and 16S gene sequencing methods. All the relevant clinical factors were collected. Wound swabs were collected for both traditional microbiological analysis, direct swab (DSM), and cultured (CM) microbiome analysis. DNA isolation, and 16SrRNA hypervariable regions were amplified. Bioinformatics analysis was performed using IonReporter Software, statistical analysis, and diversity indices were computed with vegan R-package.Results The traditional microbiological method was able to detect a maximum of one or two pathogens, and, in some cases, no pathogen was detected. The total number of the observed species was 176. The number of identified species was higher in the cultured microbiome (155) than the direct swab microbiome (136). Diversity analysis indicated that biological diversity is higher in the cultured microbiome compared with the DSM. The Shannon H index was 2.75 for the cultured microbiome and 2.63 for DSM. We observed some differences in the major bacterial taxa amongst neuroischaimic and neuropathic DFU microbiomes.Conclusions Cultured microbiome is superior to both the traditional method and direct swab microbiome. The Neuroischaimic group showed higher values for the tested diversity indices than the Neuroischaimic group. Neither Cluster Analysis nor Principal Component Analysis showed apparent clustering amongst the two types of ulcers.