The respiratory virome and exacerbations in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

van Rijn, Anneloes L.; van Boheemen, Sander; Sidorov, Igor; Carbo, Ellen C.; Pappas, Nikos; Mei, Hailiang; Feltkamp, Mariet; Aanerud, Marianne; Bakke, Per; Claas, Eric C. J.; Eagan, Tomas M.; Hiemstra, Pieter S.; Kroes, Aloys C. M.; de Vries, Jutte J. C.

Potential correlations of mNGS data with clinical variables were tested as follows. Cq value/ viral reads and clinical parameters (exacerbation severity, duration of exacerbation or decrease/increase in Forced Expiratory Volume in 1 second (FEV 1 , control visit compared to baseline) were tested with one-way ANOVA and Kruskal-Wallis test when appropriate (depending on distribution). Comparison of the percentage of phages of all viral reads (after subtraction of the internal control EAV and PhHV reads) between mNGS virus positive samples and negative samples was tested with Mann-Whitney U test, comparison with clinical parameters with Kruskal-Wallis test. Diversity of the virome in different patient groups was characterized by Shannon Diversity Index (H) and tested with Welch two sample t-test. Statistical analyses were performed using IBM SPSS Statistics version 25 software for Windows <0.05 were considered statistically significant.