These results also suggest that a shift in the microbial community towards Lactobacillus in IC urine samples may be an important etiological factor for the severe symptoms reported by the patients. Since additional culture techniques such as 48 h incubation in an atmosphere containing 7% CO2 are needed for detection of Lactobacillus, this may be the reason why IC urine samples have not yet been associated with bacterial growth in routine clinical investigations. However, in our study this problem was overcome by a culture-independent approach. Conclusion This investigation did not reveal any obvious putative causative bacterial agents of IC.

However, the greater abundance of Lactobacillus in IC urine and its lower occurrence in HF urine is an important finding that requires further study to establish whether these microbial changes play a part in the development of IC. To this end, AZD5363 datasheet whole genome sequencing of Lactobacillus from IC patients may be a possible approach. Even if an increased presence of Lactobacillus is merely a secondary marker, understanding its IC associated genomics could aid in diagnosis and therapeutic assessment. Acknowledgements AZD6244 molecular weight The authors would like to thank Hege

Junita Gaup for technical assistance, William Ryan Easterday for critical reading of the manuscript and the Norwegian Sequencing Tucidinostat Centre (NSC, www.sequencing.uio.no), Department of Biology, University of Oslo, for sequencing services. Tangeritin We are very grateful to Professor Lars M Eri and urotherapists Turid H Hoel and Bodil Svendsen at Aker University Hospital HF, Urological Clinic for specimen collection. Additionally we thank two anonymous reviewers, whose comments helped to improve the manuscript. Financial support for this research was provided by grants from the Research

Council of Norway to KSJ and from CEES to HS. Electronic supplementary material Additional file 1: Table S1. Differentially abundant taxa between interstitial cystitis (IC) and healthy female (HF) urine microbiota as estimated by Metastats (http://metastats.cbcb.umd.edu/). (PDF 36 KB) Additional file 2: Table S2. Sampling depth and biodiversity found by amplicon 454 pyrosequencing V1V2 and V6 region from eight interstitial cystitis (IC) and eight healthy female (HF) urine. (PDF 102 KB) Additional file 3: Table S3. Bacterial species identified in interstitial cystitis (IC) urine by 16S rDNA amplicon 454 pyrosequencing. (PDF 65 KB) Additional file 4: Figure S1. Venn diagrams for overlap between healthy female (HF) urine observed OTUs vs. interstitial cystitis (IC) urine OTUs, for both V1V2 (A) and V6 (B) region. The OTUs are calculated at 3% genetic sequence dissimilarity. (PDF 49 KB) References 1. Payne CK, Joyce GF, Wise M, Clemens JQ: Interstitial cystitis and painful bladder syndrome. J Urol 2007,177(6):2042–2049.PubMedCrossRef 2.