FIGURE 5.

Association of the lower airway microbiome with markers of inflammation. a) Log₁₀ scale for interleukin (IL)-6 and -8 in tracheal aspirate fluid (TAF) and bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) fluid samples for samples where bacterial sequencing was positive or negative. b) The relationship between IL-6, IL-8, antibiotic treatment (blue) in upper graph and bacterial load (black) and bars showing genus constituents in three individual babies. Generally, parallel increases and decreases were observed for all markers despite antibiotic treatment. c) Averaged IL-6 and IL-8 in TAF samples shown for each time point regardless of bacterial presence showing a peak of both cytokines at day 7 as previously shown [2, 3, 19] Data are presented as mean±sem. d) Association between the presence of IL-6 and IL-8 in BAL samples with specific operational taxonomic units (OTUs) showing increased IL-6 and IL-8 if an OTU was identified when compared to the negative for sequencing group. E. coli: Escherichia coli.