Revealing the potential value of urine microbiota in ureteral stent encrustation after renal transplantation via Illumina sequencing of 16S rRNA genes.

Background: The complication of ureteral stent encrustation (USE) has brought many challenges and troubles to clinical treatment after renal transplantation. The aim of this study was to explore the microbiota that may be involved in the formation and progression of encrustation in ureteral stents.

Methods: In total, 15 patients with ureteral stent non-encrustation (USNE) after renal transplantation and 18 patients with USE after renal transplantation were included in this study. The urine microbiota was analyzed by 16 S rRNA gene sequencing, followed by composition analysis, difference analysis and PICRUSt function prediction. In addition, random forest classification diagnostic models were constructed based on urine microbiota.

Results: Compared to the USNE-U group, the microbial community diversity, evenness, and coverage of the USE-U group were significantly reduced. At the phylum level, Actinobacteriota, Patescibacteria and Desulfobacterota may be the important microbiota involved in the formation of USE. At the genus level, Staphylococcus, Escherichia-Shigella, Dermabacter, Corynebacterium and Streptococcus may play an important role in USE. The functions of microbiota that may be involved in USE formation were also discovered, such as defense mechanisms, amino acid transport and metabolism, and L-rhamnose degradation I. In addition, the receiver operator characteristic (ROC) result showed that the classification model had excellent diagnostic accuracy in detecting USE.

Conclusion: The results of this study suggest that urine microbiota may be closely related to the formation of USE, which provides a new perspective for understanding the pathogenesis of USE, which may contribute to early clinical diagnosis and treatment of USE.