Abstract
The vaginal microbiome is an intricate and dynamic microecosystem that constantly undergoes fluctuations during the female menstrual cycle and the woman’s entire life. A healthy vaginal microbiome is dominated by Lactobacillus which produce various antimicrobial compounds. Bacterial vaginosis (BV) is characterized by the loss or sharp decline in the total number of Lactobacillus and a corresponding marked increase in the concentration of anaerobic microbes. BV is a highly prevalent disorder of the vaginal microbiota among women of reproductive age globally. BV is confirmed to be associated with adverse gynecologic and obstetric outcomes, such as sexually transmitted infections, pelvic inflammatory disease, and preterm birth. Gardnerella vaginalis is the most common microorganism identified from BV. It is the predominant microbe in polymicrobial biofilms that could shelter G. vaginalis and other BV-associated microbes from adverse host environments. Many efforts have been made to increase our understanding of the vaginal microbiome in health and BV. Thus, improved novel and accurate diagnosis and therapeutic strategies for BV have been developed. This review covers the features of vaginal microbiome, BV, BV-associated diseases, and various strategies of diagnosis and treatment of BV, with an emphasis on recent research progresses.
Highlights
The human body is a holobiont consisting of the host and multispecies microbes, and the interdependency among them has been progressively enhanced in the approximately half a billion years of human–microbial coevolution (Maynard et al, 2012; Lynch and Pedersen, 2016)
This review aims to describe the vaginal microbiome with regards to female health, discuss Bacterial vaginosis (BV) characteristics, present a strong association between BV and diseases, and outline the requirement for comprehensive, accurate, and advanced diagnosis and therapies to lower adverse health outcomes
Efforts should be made to reveal the mechanism of interactions between species and their impact on vaginal microbiome
Summary
The human body is a holobiont consisting of the host and multispecies microbes, and the interdependency among them has been progressively enhanced in the approximately half a billion years of human–microbial coevolution (Maynard et al, 2012; Lynch and Pedersen, 2016). The previous knowledge of microbiota in holobionts is shaped by the researches where culture-dependent methods are used to cultivate species. With the advent of new technologies, scientists reveal that biodiversity is far beyond the microbial cells cultivated with culture-dependent methods. The oral cavity and intestinal tract have been the long-term focus of a large number of researches on the microbial communities of human bodies. A systematic detection of the female reproductive tract microbial biomass was conducted by 16S rRNA gene sequencing. Data from 110 persons of reproductive age revealed that the vagina contains 1010–1011 bacteria (Chen et al, 2017)
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