Despite being commonly used to collect upper airway epithelial lining fluid, nasal washes are poorly reproducible, not suitable for serial sampling, and limited by a dilution effect. In contrast, nasal filters lack these limitations and are an attractive alternative. To examine whether nasal filters are superior to nasal washes as a sampling method for the characterization of the upper airway microbiome and immune response, we collected paired nasal filters and washes from a group of 40 healthy children and adults. To characterize the upper airway microbiome, we used 16S ribosomal RNA and shotgun metagenomic sequencing. To characterize the immune response, we measured total protein using a BCA assay and 53 immune mediators using multiplex magnetic bead-based assays. We conducted statistical analyses to compare common microbial ecology indices and immune-mediator median fluorescence intensities (MFIs) between sample types. In general, nasal filters were more likely to pass quality control in both children and adults. There were no significant differences in microbiome community richness, α-diversity, or structure between pediatric samples types; however, these were all highly dissimilar between adult sample types. In addition, there were significant differences in the abundance of amplicon sequence variants between sample types in children and adults. In adults, total proteins were significantly higher in nasal filters than nasal washes; consequently, the immune-mediator MFIs were not well detected in nasal washes. Based on better quality control sequencing metrics and higher immunoassay sensitivity, our results suggest that nasal filters are a superior sampling method to characterize the upper airway microbiome and immune response in both children and adults.

尽管鼻洗液通常用于收集上呼吸道上皮衬里液，但其重现性很差，不适合连续采样，并且受到稀释效果的限制。相反，鼻过滤器没有这些限制，并且是有吸引力的选择。为了检查鼻过滤器是否优于鼻洗液，作为表征上呼吸道微生物组和免疫反应的一种采样方法，我们从40名健康的儿童和成人中收集了成对的鼻过滤器和洗液。为了表征上呼吸道微生物组，我们使用了16S核糖体RNA和shot弹枪宏基因组测序。为了表征免疫应答，我们使用BCA测定法测量了总蛋白，并使用基于多重磁珠的测定法测量了53种免疫介体。我们进行了统计分析，以比较样品类型之间的常见微生物生态指数和免疫介质中值荧光强度（MFI）。通常，鼻过滤器在儿童和成人中更可能通过质量控制。儿科样本类型之间的微生物组群落丰富度，α多样性或结构没有显着差异；但是，成人样本类型之间的差异都很大。另外，在儿童和成人中，样本类型之间的扩增子序列变体的丰度存在显着差异。在成年人中，鼻过滤器中的总蛋白质显着高于洗鼻液。因此，在鼻腔清洗中不能很好地检测到免疫介体MFI。基于更好的质量控制测序指标和更高的免疫测定灵敏度，