Blood cultures and blood microbiota analysis as surrogates for bronchoalveolar lavage fluid analysis in dogs with bacterial pneumonia

Abstract Background Diagnosis of canine bacterial pneumonia relies on airway lavage to confirm septic, suppurative inflammation, and a positive culture. Considering risks bronchoalveolar fluid (BALF) collection, minimally invasive methods like culture or next generation sequencing blood would be appealing. In dogs with pneumonia, our study aims included (1): determining proportion agreement between cultivable bacteria in BALF (2); characterizing BALF, blood, oropharyngeal (OP) microbiota if cultured from were present these communities; (3) comparing relatedness microbial community composition at all three sites. Bacterial cultures performed blood. After DNA extraction OP, 16S rRNA amplicon libraries generated, sequenced, compared gene sequence database. Results Disregarding one false positive, 2/9 (5 total isolates), 5 isolates (16 isolates). Based data, sites had rich diverse communities. Comparing genera sequenced taxa, ≥1 isolate their microbiota: found (12/16), (7/16), OP (6/11; only 7 swabs). Of 394 distinct taxa detected 75% 45% samples. was significantly different than ( p = 0.0059) 0.0009). Conclusions Blood are insensitive but specific for pneumonia. Cultivable differing degrees.