Sputum microbial taxonomic variation during 60-day follow-up.
We investigated the sputum microbial taxonomic variation across the five time points by comparing the detection rate and relative abundance of the ZOTUs. We involved 330 ZOTUs for which the relative abundance was greater than 0.01% and the detection rate was greater than 50% at any time point in the analysis. After exposing to azithromycin, the detection rate of 114 ZOTUs decreased at D4. Twenty (17.54%) ZOTUs of them assigned to family Microbial taxonomic variation after azithromycin administration during 60-day follow-up. The blue boxes mean the detection rate of zero-radius operational taxonomic units (ZOTUs) across the five time points. The detection rate describes the proportion of individual ZOTU appearing in the subjects. The red boxes mean the mean relative abundance of ZOTUs across the five time points. The relative abundance describes the mean percentage of the individual ZOTU in the whole subjects. *, The variations in the relative abundance and detection rate of oral microbiota were similar to those of sputum microbiota, but the unique changes were seen in the two niches (Fig. S4; supplemental material). We found no significant microbial variation in the detection rate and relative abundance in the placebo group across the five time points (Fig. S5).