Long-term cultivation-independent microbial diversity analysis demonstrates that bacterial communities infecting the adult cystic fibrosis lung show stability and resilience.

Background: Culture-independent analysis of the respiratory secretions of people with cystic fibrosis (CF) has identified many bacterial species not previously detected using culture in this context. However, little is known about their clinical significance or persistence in CF airways.

Methods: The authors characterised the viable bacterial communities in the sputum collected from 14 patients at monthly intervals over 1 year using a molecular community profiling technique-terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism.