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Vaginal Microbiome Dysbiosis is Associated with the Different Cervical Disease Status

  • Microbial Pathogenesis and Host-Microbe Interaction
  • Published:
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Abstract

Vaginal microbiome composition was demonstrated to be associated with cervical disease. The colonization characteristics of vaginal microbes and their association with the different cervical disease status, especially cervical cancer (CC), are rarely investigated. In this cross-sectional study, we characterized the vaginal microbiome of women with different status of cervical diseases, including 22 NV + (normal tissue with HPV infection), low-grade squamous intraepithelial lesion (LSIL, n = 45), high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesion (HSIL, n = 36) and CC (n = 27) using bacterial 16S DNA sequencing. Thirty HPV-negative women with normal tissue were used as the control group. We found that higher diversity of microbiome with gradual depletion of Lactobacillus, especially L. crispatus, was associated with the severity of cervical disease. High-risk HPV16 infection was associated with higher microbiome diversity and depletion of Lactobacillus in high-grade cervical diseases (i.e. HSIL and CC). The CC group was characterized by higher levels of Fannyhessea vaginae, Prevotella, Bacteroides, Finegoldia, Vibrio, Veillonella, Peptostreptococcus, and Dialister. Co-occurrence network analyses showed that negative correlations were exclusively observed between Lactobacillus and other bacteria, and almost all non-Lactobacillus bacteria were positively correlated with each other. In particular, the most diverse and complex co-occurrence network of vaginal bacteria, as well as a complete loss of L. crispatus, was observed in women with CC. Logistic regression model identified HPV16 and Lactobacillus as significant risk and protective factors for CC, respectively. These results suggest that specific Lactobacillus species (e.g. L. crispatus and L. iners) can be used as important markers to target prevention measures prioritizing HPV16-infected women and other hrHPV-infected women for test, vaccination and treat initiatives.

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Data Availability

The raw data of 16S rRNA gene sequences were deposited in the CNSA (https://db.cngb.org/cnsa/) of CNGBdb (project number CNP0002796) under the accession numbers CNS0527767- CNS0527926.

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Author notes

  1. Yingying Ma and Yanpeng Li are contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200437, People’s Republic of China

    Yingying Ma, Yanpeng Li, Le Cao & Chiyu Zhang

  2. Center of Diagnosis and Treatment for Cervical and Uterine Cavity Disease, Obstetrics and Gynecology Hospital of Fudan University, Shanghai, 200011, People’s Republic of China

    Yanmei Liu, Xiao Han & Shujun Gao

  3. Shanghai Key Laboratory of Female Reproductive Endocrine-Related Disease, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200011, People’s Republic of China

    Yanmei Liu, Xiao Han & Shujun Gao

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  1. Yingying Ma
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  2. Yanpeng Li
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Correspondence to Shujun Gao or Chiyu Zhang.

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Ethical Statements

The collection of samples was approved by the Ethics Committees of Obstetrics and Gynecology Hospital of Fudan University (No. 2021–103). Written informed consents were obtained from all patients before sample collection.

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Ma, Y., Li, Y., Liu, Y. et al. Vaginal Microbiome Dysbiosis is Associated with the Different Cervical Disease Status. J Microbiol. 61, 423–432 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12275-023-00039-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12275-023-00039-3

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