Abstract
BackgroundGardnerella vaginalis is a facultative gram positive organism that requires subculture every 1–2 days to maintain viability. It has been linked with bacterial vaginosis (BV), a syndrome that has been associated with increased risk for preterm delivery, pelvic inflammatory disease and HIV acquisition. About 10% of the G. vaginalis isolates have been reported to produce sialidase, but there have not been any studies relating sialidase production and biotype. Sialidase activity is dramatically increased in the vaginal fluid of women with BV and bacterial sialidases have been shown to increase the infectivity of HIV in vitro. There are 8 different biotypes of G. vaginalis. Biotypes 1–4 produce lipase and were reported to be associated with BV and the association of these biotypes with BV is under dispute. Other studies have demonstrated that G. vaginalis biotype 1 can stimulate HIV-1 production. Because of the discrepancies in the literature we compared the methods used to biotype G. vaginalis and investigated the relationship of biotype and sialidase production.ResultsA new medium for maintenance of Gardnerella vaginalis which allows survival for longer than one week is described. Some isolates only grew well under anaerobic conditions. Sialidase producing isolates were observed in 5 of the 6 biotypes tested. Using 4-methylumbelliferyl-oleate to determine lipase activity, instead of egg yolk agar, resulted in erroneous biotypes and does not provide reliable results.ConclusionPrevious studies associating G. vaginalis biotype with bacterial vaginosis were methodologically flawed, suggesting there is not an association of G. vaginalis biotypes and bacterial vaginosis. Sialidase activity was observed in 5 of the 8 biotypes.
Highlights
Gardnerella vaginalis is a facultative gram positive organism that requires subculture every 1–2 days to maintain viability
Studies have demonstrated that treatment of HIV-1 or lymphocytes with bacterial sialidase increases the infectivity of the virus [10,11]
Gardnerella vaginalis agar (GVA) Most of our work is performed with strains with a low number of passages; we devised a medium for G. vaginalis that facilitated our work by not requiring frequent subculture to fresh medium
Summary
Gardnerella vaginalis is a facultative gram positive organism that requires subculture every 1–2 days to maintain viability. It has been linked with bacterial vaginosis (BV), a syndrome that has been associated with increased risk for preterm delivery, pelvic inflammatory disease and HIV acquisition. About 10% of the G. vaginalis isolates have been reported to produce sialidase, but there have not been any studies relating sialidase production and biotype. Other studies have demonstrated that G. vaginalis biotype 1 can stimulate HIV-1 production. Studies have demonstrated that treatment of HIV-1 or lymphocytes with bacterial sialidase increases the infectivity of the virus [10,11]. G. vaginalis can be isolated from women without any symptoms and recovered from sites (page number not for citation purposes)
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