Modern Genetic Methods to Test EPS Samples in Prostatitis Patients

Prostatitis is so widespread a disease that affects people from youths to seniors, with approximately a third experiencing a remission of symptoms over a year follow-up. Although the etiology of prostatitis is still not clear, it is mainly thought to be due to infection of bacteria or other microorganisms. Traditional techniques to identify bacteria (e.g. on agar petri plates) are limited in what they can identify. Although HMP (Human Microbiome Project) has turned many mysteries into common sense, little is done on the relationship of bacteria in the prostate for prostatitis. Up to now, there is still no research being done on the microbiome (bacterial species) of the prostate. The objective of this study is to look at the etiology of chronic prostatitis (bacteria or non-bacteria prostatitis), mainly focusing on the effect of bacteria in the prostate. Modern sequencing methods, such as 16s rRNA amplification, cloning and sequencing will be used to evaluate the role of bacteria in prostatitis. The basic idea is to survey the microbes present in expressed prostatic fluid using 16s sequencing to compare healthy men and prostatitis patients in a small cohort to see if there are correlations between microbes found and symptoms.