# Integrated Metagenomic and Metatranscriptomic Characterization of Inflammatory Chronic Rhinosinusitis Endotypes

> **NIH NIH R21** · VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER · 2020 · $255,000

## Abstract

Project Summary
Chronic rhinosinusitis is a common inflammatory disease that affects a large portion of the U.S. population,
resulting in poor quality of life for those affected and utilizing billions of dollars of health care resources. The
etiology of CRS remains poorly understood but current evidence points to a dysregulation of the innate and
adaptive immune system that results in persistent mucosal inflammation and microbial colonization. The central
hypothesis of this proposal is that clinically relevant CRS endotypes defined by distinct inflammatory signatures
are associated with changes to sinonasal microbiome community structure, composition, and function. We will
test this hypothesis by analyzing a large prospectively enrolled cohort of healthy control and CRS patients.
Specific Aim 1 will correlate inflammatory CRS endotypes previously identified by our research group using
hierarchical cluster analysis with taxonomic changes to the sinonasal bacterial community. Aim 2 will
complement findings from Aim 1 using an integrated metatranscriptomic approach to characterize both the host
and bacterial transcriptome. This data will help determine the functional relevance of bacterial genes and
transcripts present in CRS, and identify potential differences between endotypes, while also assessing related
changes to the host transcriptome. We hypothesize that inflammatory CRS endotypes will be distinguished by
variations not only in bacterial community structure and composition, but also in the function, metabolism, and
transcriptional activity of resident bacteria. Findings from this study will provide insight into the mechanism of
CRS and reveal previously unidentified associations between the sinus microbiota and different types of chronic
mucosal inflammation in the sinonasal cavity.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9896586
- **Project number:** 1R21AI142321-01A1
- **Recipient organization:** VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER
- **Principal Investigator:** Suman Ranjan Das
- **Activity code:** R21 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $255,000
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2020-01-01 → 2021-12-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9896586

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9896586, Integrated Metagenomic and Metatranscriptomic Characterization of Inflammatory Chronic Rhinosinusitis Endotypes (1R21AI142321-01A1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9896586. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*