Taxonomical Annotation of Whole Genome Metagenomic Data to identify Microbiome in Indian TB Patients

Abstract

Till date, Tuberculosis is a major health problem especially in India. Though, Mycobacterium tuberculosis is the causative agent of tuberculosis (TB) and it kills approximately about 1.3 million people every year according to WHO, yet the role of complex microbial community favoring the growth of Mycobacterium complex is immense. There are several studies that have already been reported that there exists a strong association between the complex microbial interactions in the community and the disease condition for majority of the diseases that are caused by different microorganisms.Our present analysis aims to characterize up-till species level abundance in Mycobacterial tuberculosis metagenome. In our study we have taken a total of 100 whole genome sequenced Indian Tuberculosis patient samples. These 100 samples were analyzed to obtain taxonomical abundance. It was seen that South Indian samples had 54 unique species whereas North Indian samples had only 13 unique species. Our study revealed that Achromobacter, Nocardia, Chromobacterium, Staphylococcus, Xanthomonas, Bacillus, Sanguibacter and Bordetella are mostly abundant in Indian tuberculosis patients and we are able to classify all these till species level, which other 16s rRNA studies have failed to do. Knowing the species present during the tuberculosis infection it will be of great importance to treat the patients with right antibiotics for the microbiome present.