Many studies have shown that the urinary tract harbours its own microbial community known as the urinary microbiota, which have been implicated in urinary tract disorders. This observation contradicts the long-held notion that urine is a sterile biofluid in the absence of acute infection of the urinary tract. In light of this new discovery, many basic questions that are crucial for understanding the role of the urinary microbiota in human health and disease remain unanswered. Given that the urinary microbiota is an emerging area of study, optimized techniques and protocols to identify microorganisms in the urinary tract are still being established. However, the low microbial biomass and close proximity to higher microbial biomass environments (for example, the vagina) present distinct methodological challenges for microbial community profiling of the urinary microbiota. A clear understanding of the unique technical considerations for obtaining and analysing low microbial biomass samples, as well the influence of key elements of experimental design and computational analysis on downstream interpretation, will improve our ability to interpret and compare results across methods and studies and is relevant for studies profiling the urinary microbiota and other sites of low microbial abundance.

许多研究表明，尿路拥有自己的微生物群落，称为尿微生物群，与尿路疾病有关。这一发现与长期以来一直认为尿液是无菌的生物流体而没有急性尿路感染的观点相矛盾。鉴于这一新发现，许多对于理解泌尿菌群在人类健康和疾病中的作用至关重要的基本问题仍未得到解答。鉴于泌尿菌群是一个新兴的研究领域，因此仍在建立用于鉴定泌尿道中微生物的优化技术和方案。但是，微生物量较低，并且与较高的微生物量环境非常接近（例如，阴道）对泌尿微生物群的微生物群落分析提出了独特的方法学挑战。清楚地了解获取和分析低微生物生物量样品的独特技术考虑因素，以及实验设计和计算分析的关键要素对下游解释的影响，将提高我们在各种方法和研究中解释和比较结果的能力，并且具有相关性用于分析尿中微生物群和其他微生物含量低的部位的研究。