Research Communications of the 27(th) ECVIM-CA Congress: Intercontinental, Saint Julian's, Malta, 14th to 16th September 2017

Disclosures: No disclosures to report. Sinonasal aspergillosis (SNA) most commonly affects middle-aged dolichocephalic dogs and is characterized by a destructive rhinitis and sinusitis, in the absence of fungal deeper tissue invasion. Pathogenesis of the disease is, to date, not fully understood. An uncontrolled and detrimental inflammatory response to commensal fungal colonization of the nasal cavities and sinuses has been suggested. In humans, a role of the bacterial microbiota in the regulation of host immune responsiveness to fungi has been hypothesized. Therefore, the objective of the present study was to identify and characterize the microbiota present in nasal cavities of client-owned dogs diagnosed with SNA compared with healthy age and breed-matched non-affected dogs. Nine large breed dolichocephalic dogs diagnosed with SNA (6 males, 3 females, mean age 5.5 years) and 10 healthy age-and breed-matched dogs (7 males, 3 females, mean age 5 years) were included. DNA was extracted from a sterile swab introduced in the distal third of the right nasal cavity under general anesthesia. Metagenetic analysis was performed on V1-V3 hypervariable region of 16S rDNA after total bacterial DNA extraction from nasal specimens and sequencing on a MiSeq Illumina sequencer. Taxonomical assignation and microbiota community analysis were done with MOTHUR V1.35 with an OTU clustering distance of 0.03. Differences of population abundance between groups were assessed using multiple t tests with Holm-Sidak multi-test correction (significance < 0.05).