Meta-genomics study among four contact lens wearers from India

Human conjunctival flora plays an important role in protecting the eye. Contact lens wearers are prone to have changes in conjunctiva flora. This study aims at assessing the variability of conjunctiva flora among contact lens wearers. We performed Ion Torrent based 16s metagenomic sequencing from 4 contact lens wearers conjunctiva swab samples. Proteobacteria found to be the most predominant phylum present in all samples. On genus level we have detected 250 bacterial strains and we found upto 455 species bacterial strains at class level, the sample was found to be most enriched with Alpha proteobacteria (52%), Gamma proteobacteria (18%) and Actinobacteria (9%) and Bacilli (6%). Order level, analysis showed presence of 52% of Alpha proteobacteria with Rhodobacterales (29%), Sphingomanadales (20%), and 1% Caulobacterales order followed by 18% of Gamma proteobacteria with Pseudomonadales (15%), Xanthomanadales (1%), 13% of Beta proteobacteria occupies Burkholderiales and 5% of Bacillales. Wearing contact lens may increase the risk of eye infections and also from the data we found that opportunistic infections may not only be caused by predominant species like cultivable Pseudomanas but also be due to uncultivable bacteria found in conjunctival swab samples the detection of which was made possible by next generation sequencing.