A Bioinformatics Study on the Application of High-Throughput Sequencing Technology to Pathogen Detection in Patients with Sepsis

Bloodstream infection, or sepsis, is a serious medical condition that leads to a high mortality rate. In this bioinformatics study, advanced high-throughput sequencing (HTS) is adopted to perform quick DNA sequencing of patient's samples. Sixty blood and 42 BALF samples from patients with sepsis were used to perform microbe cultures and HTS pathogen detection methods respectively. Four samples out of 30 were identified as positive by a blood culturing method. In comparison, HTS identified 14 positive samples out of 30. Among all positive cases, identified microbial species are mainly bacteria, viruses and fungi. From 42 BALF samples, the culturing method identifies 10 positive samples out of 21. In parallel, HTS identifies 20 positive samples out of 21. Microbial species in these positive samples are mainly bacteria and viruses. In conclusion, HTS presents significant positive rate in pathogen detection compared with the culture-based approach. Through this bioinformatics study, we also find that some of the sepsis cases are caused by anaerobic bacteria, fungi, viruses and mycoplasma.