Cerebrospinal Fluid from Healthy Pregnant Women Does Not Harbor a Detectable Microbial Community
Yongyong Kang, Xinchao Ji, Li Guo, Han Xia, Xiaofei Yang, Zhen Xie, Xiaodan Shi, Rui Wu, Dongyun Feng, Chen Wang, Min Chen, Wenliang Zhang, Hong Wei, Yuanlin Guan, Kai Ye, Gang Zhao
Abstract
The microbiome is prevalent throughout human bodies, with profound health implications. However, it remains unclear whether it is present and active in human CSF, which has been long considered aseptic due to the blood-brain barrier. Here, we applied unbiased metagenomic and metatranscriptomic sequencing to detect the presence of a microbiome in CSF collected from 23 pregnant women with matched controls. Analysis of 116 specimens found no strong evidence to support the presence of a colonized microbiome in CSF. Our findings will strengthen our understanding of the internal environment of the CSF in healthy people, which has strong implications for human health, especially for neurological infections and disorders, and will help further disease diagnostics, prevention, and therapeutics in clinical settings.