Bacterial sequences detected in 99 out of 99 serum samples from Ebola patients

Abstract

Bacterial sequences detected in 99 out of 99 serum samples from Ebola patientsEvolution and clinical manifestations of Ebola virus (EBOV) infection overlap with the pathologic processes that occur in sepsis 1 . Some viruses certainly compromise the immune system, leading to a breach in the integrity of the mucosal epithelial barrier, thus allowing bacterial translocation 2, 3 . Guided by these facts, we wondered if bacteria could be involved in the pathogenesis of some of the septic shock-like symptoms typical of EBOV infected patients, something that could have a dramatic impact on the design of new treatment approaches. We decided to search for bacteria in available EBOV patient sequence datasets.Given that EBOV is an RNA virus and that, hence, some NGS sequencing experiments carried out to sequence the EBOV genomes were RNA-Seq experiments, we thought that, if there were any bacteria in patient serum, at least some bacterial RNA might probably be detected in the sequenced material from Ebola patients. Thus, we searched for bacteria in a RNA-Seq public dataset from 99 Ebola samples from the last outbreak 4 , and surprisingly, in spite of the certainly suboptimal experimental conditions for bacterial RNA sequencing, we found bacteria in all of the 99 samples.

Ebola Virus Causes Intestinal Tract Architectural Disruption and Bacterial Invasion in Non-Human Primates

“…There were no blood cultures, tissue cultures, or PCR-based quantitative bacterial studies performed in these protocols. Of note, gram-negative bacteremia has been observed in humans infected with EBOV and it has been hypothesized that this is related to gut translocation [ 5 , 11 , 12 ]. Another limitation of our analysis is that 2/31 (6%) of the NHPs in our cohort were found dead.…”

“…The use of empiric antibiotics seems to be supported by Kreuels et al [ 5 ] who reported that their critically ill Ebola patient experienced intestinal dysmotility and sepsis presumably due to translocation of a multi-drug resistant (MDR) gram-negative bacillus from the GI tract. A recent study demonstrated bacterial sequences in 99/99 (100%) serum samples examined from Ebola patients [ 11 ]. Furthermore, Carroll et al found that the majority of their cohort of 179 subjects that tested qRT-PCR positive for Ebola virus (EBOV) had evidence of bacterial translocation across the gut [ 12 ].…”