Temporal dynamics of the human vaginal microbiota

Pawel Gajer, Rebecca M. Brotman, Guoyun Bai, Joyce Sakamoto, Ursel M.E. Schütte, Xue Zhong, Sara S.K. Koenig, Li Fu, Zhanshan Ma, Xia Zhou, Zaid Abdo, Larry J. Forney, Jacques Ravel

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

1089 Scopus citations

Abstract

Elucidating the factors that impinge on the stability of bacterial communities in the vagina may help in predicting the risk of diseases that affect women's health. Here, we describe the temporal dynamics of the composition of vaginal bacterial communities in 32 reproductive-age women over a 16-week period. The analysis revealed the dynamics of five major classes of bacterial communities and showed that some communities change markedly over short time periods, whereas others are relatively stable. Modeling community stability using new quantitative measures indicates that deviation from stability correlates with time in the menstrual cycle, bacterial community composition, and sexual activity. The women studied are healthy; thus, it appears that neither variation in community composition per se nor higher levels of observed diversity (co-dominance) are necessarily indicative of dysbiosis.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number132ra52
JournalScience Translational Medicine
Volume4
Issue number132
DOIs
StatePublished - May 2 2012

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • General Medicine

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