Abstract
BackgroundMicrobiome and metagenomic studies have given rise to a new understanding of microbial colonization of various human tissues and their ability to impact our health. One human microbiome growing in notoriety, the vaginal microbiome, stands out given its importance for women’s health, and is peculiar in terms of its relative bacterial composition, including its simplicity and typical domination by a small number of Lactobacillus species. The loss of Lactobacillus dominance is associated with disorders such as bacterial vaginosis, and efforts are now underway to understand the ability of Lactobacillus species to colonize the vaginal tract and adapt to this dynamic and acidic environment. Here, we investigate how various Lactobacillus species often isolated from the vaginal and intestinal cavities genomically and transcriptionally respond to iterative growth in simulated vaginal fluid.ResultsWe determined the genomes and transcriptomes of L. acidophilus, L. crispatus, L. fermentum, L. gasseri, and L. jensenii and compared profiles after 50, 100, 500, and 1000 generations of iterative passages in synthetic vaginal fluid. In general, we identified relatively few genetic changes consisting of single nucleotide polymorphisms, with higher counts occurring more frequently in non-vaginal isolated species. Transcriptional profiles were more impacted over time and tended to be more extensive for species that typically do not dominate the vaginal tract, reflecting a more extensive need to adapt to a less familiar environment.ConclusionsThis study provides insights into how vaginal and non-vaginal Lactobacillus species respond and adapt to a simulated vaginal environment. Overall, trends indicate high genomic stability for all species involved, with more variability in the transcriptome especially for non-dominant species of the vaginal tract.
Highlights
Microbiome and metagenomic studies have given rise to a new understanding of microbial colonization of various human tissues and their ability to impact our health
Bacterial growth in simulated vaginal fluid Five species were selected to study how Lactobacillus adapts to a simulated vaginal environment (Table 1)
Growth was evaluated at generations 0, 50, 100, 500, and 1000 in both de Man (MRS) and Simulated Vaginal Fluid (SVF) (Fig. 1)
Summary
Microbiome and metagenomic studies have given rise to a new understanding of microbial colonization of various human tissues and their ability to impact our health. One such study was the Human Microbiome Project (HMP) in 2007 that allowed researchers to truly begin to understand and extensively study how microbes and microbial genes affect their human hosts, contribute to disease, and impact health [1, 2]. This project and the advent of NGS have spurred several subsequent microbiome studies, both large and small scale, into all levels of the human microbiome.
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