The human lung microbiome progressively diminishes in the distal alveolar regions
Pauline Potratz, Antje Häder, Laura Kursawe, Judith Kikhney, Nikolaus Gaßler, Thurid Lauf, Lukáš Radosa, Tim Sandhaus, Patrick von Samson, Xiuqiang Chen, Lu Wang, Axel A. Brakhage, Annette Moter, Gianni Panagiotou, Torsten Doenst, Stefanie Deinhardt-Emmer, Bettina Löffler · 2026
Read The human lung microbiome progressively diminishes in the distal alveolar regions by Pauline Potratz, Antje Häder, Laura Kursawe, Judith Kikhney, Nikolaus Gaßler, Thurid Lauf, Lukáš Radosa, Tim Sandhaus, Patrick von Samson, Xiuqiang Chen, Lu Wang, Axel A. Brakhage, Annette Moter, Gianni Panagiotou, Torsten Doenst, Stefanie Deinhardt-Emmer, Bettina Löffler (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/PMC13287667.txt.
Description
Pauline Potratz and colleagues sampled human lung tissue in 2026 from transplant and surgery patients, comparing upper airway regions with deep air-sac regions. Gene sequencing often reports rich microbe life even in deep lung, so the team added growing tests and imaging to check whether those microbes are alive.
Sequencing showed a shift along the airway: skin-like and mouth-like bacteria gave way to air-shunning kinds deeper down, with wide differences between patients. Growing and imaging found almost no living microbes in the deep regions. The authors conclude that deep lung DNA signals likely come from very few bacteria or from dead remains, not a thriving community.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Pauline Potratz, Antje Häder, Laura Kursawe, Judith Kikhney, Nikolaus Gaßler, Thurid Lauf, Lukáš Radosa, Tim Sandhaus, Patrick von Samson, Xiuqiang Chen, Lu Wang, Axel A. Brakhage, Annette Moter, Gianni Panagiotou, Torsten Doenst, Stefanie Deinhardt-Emmer, Bettina Löffler |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 49134 |
| LICENSE | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |