Changes in the vaginal microbiota across a gradient of urbanization
Open Access
- 27 July 2020
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Springer Science and Business Media LLC in Scientific Reports
- Vol. 10 (1), 1-12
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-69111-x
Abstract
The vaginal microbiota of healthy women typically has low diversity, which increases after perturbations. Among these, lifestyle associated with certain sexual and antimicrobial practices may be associated with higher diversity. To test this hypothesis, we characterized the vaginal microbiota in the cervicovaginal and introital sites in sexually active Amerindians (N=82) spanning urbanization, and in urban mestizos (N=29), in the Venezuelan Amazonas. HPV status was also considered. Sampling was performed in an urban gradient from remote villages to a town, and women were individually classified by the degree of urbanization (low, medium, and high). Amerindian cervicovaginal and introital microbiota diversity were not associated with major changes in urbanization or ethnicity. There was a non-significant trend of increased diversity with urbanization, with a few taxa found overrepresented in urban Amerindians (Brevibacterium linens and Peptoniphilus lacrimalis) or mestizos (Mobiluncus mulieris and Prevotella sp.). Among all women, cervicovaginal and introital samples clustered, respectively, in four and two community state types (CSTs), where most profiles were dominated by Lactobacillus iners, Gardnerella vaginalis or were highly diverse profiles. HPV status did not associate with microbial diversity. In conclusion, no association was found between urban level and the vaginal microbiome in Amerindian women, and little difference was found between ethnicities. L. iners and high diversity profiles, associated with vaginal health outcomes, prevail in these populations.This publication has 96 references indexed in Scilit:
- Association of the Vaginal Microbiota with Human Papillomavirus Infection in a Korean Twin CohortPLOS ONE, 2013
- Structure, function and diversity of the healthy human microbiomeNature, 2012
- Human gut microbiome viewed across age and geographyNature, 2012
- FLASH: fast length adjustment of short reads to improve genome assembliesBioinformatics, 2011
- Vaginal microbiome of reproductive-age womenProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2010
- QIIME allows analysis of high-throughput community sequencing dataNature Methods, 2010
- The vaginal bacterial communities of Japanese women resemble those of women in other racial groupsFEMS Immunology & Medical Microbiology, 2010
- Diversity of Human Vaginal Bacterial Communities and Associations with Clinically Defined Bacterial VaginosisApplied and Environmental Microbiology, 2008
- The effect of vaginal douching cessation on bacterial vaginosis: a pilot studyAmerican Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, 2008
- Database indexing for production MegaBLAST searchesBioinformatics, 2008