Group B Streptococcus colonization induces Prevotella and Megasphaera abundance-featured vaginal microbiome compositional change in non-pregnant women

Xiaofeng Mu; Changying Zhao; Junjie Yang; Xiaofang Wei; Jiaming Zhang; Cheng Liang; Zhongtao Gai; Chunling Zhang; Dequan Zhu; Ye Wang; Lei Zhang

doi:10.7717/peerj.7474

Group B Streptococcus colonization induces Prevotella and Megasphaera abundance-featured vaginal microbiome compositional change in non-pregnant women

PeerJ. 2019 Aug 16:7:e7474. doi: 10.7717/peerj.7474. eCollection 2019.

Authors

Xiaofeng Mu^#^{1

2

3}, Changying Zhao^#^{4

5}, Junjie Yang⁶, Xiaofang Wei², Jiaming Zhang⁷, Cheng Liang⁸, Zhongtao Gai^{4

5}, Chunling Zhang², Dequan Zhu⁹, Ye Wang², Lei Zhang¹⁰

Affiliations

¹ Tianjin University, Academy of Medical Engineering and Translational Medicine, Tianjin, China.
² Clinical Laboratory and Core Research Laboratory; Qingdao Human Microbiome Center & Qingdao Institute of Oncology, The Affiliated Central Hospital of Qingdao University, Qingdao, China.
³ School of Precision Instruments and Optoelectronics Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin, China.
⁴ Shandong Children's Microbiome Center, Qilu Children's Hospital of Shandong University, Jinan, China.
⁵ Research Institute of Pediatrics, Qilu Children's Hospital of Shandong University, Jinan, China.
⁶ College of Life Science, Qilu Normal University, Jinan, China.
⁷ School of Basic Medical Sciences, Shandong University, Jinan, China.
⁸ School of Information Science and Engineering, Shandong Normal University, Jinan, China.
⁹ Microbiological Laboratory; Department of Infection Management; Department of Neurosurgery, Lin Yi People's Hospital, Linyi, China.
¹⁰ Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Big Data-Based Precision Medicine, Beihang University, Beijing, China.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Background: Previous studies have indicated that variations in the vaginal microbiome result in symptomatic conditions. Group B Streptococcus (GBS) is a significant neonatal pathogen and maternal vaginal colonization has been recognized as an important risk factor for neonatal disease. Therefore, it is important to discover the relationship between the composition of the vaginal microbiome and GBS colonization. This study explores the potential relationship between the composition of the vaginal microbiome and GBS colonization in non-pregnant Chinese women.

Methods: A total of 22 GBS-positive, non-pregnant women and 44 matched GBS-negative women were recruited for the current study. The composition of the vaginal microbiome was profiled by sequencing the 16S rRNA genes. The microbiome diversity and variation were then evaluated.

Results: The vaginal microbiome of the 66 subjects enrolled in the current study were compared and the results showed that GBS-positive women exhibited significant vaginal microbial differences compared with the GBS-negative women based on the analysis of similarities (r = 0.306, p < 0.01). The relative abundance of the bacterial genus Lactobacillus (p < 0.01) was significantly lower in the GBS-positive group, while the abundances of the bacterial genera Prevotella (p < 0.01), Megasphaera (p < 0.01), and Streptococcus (p < 0.01) were significantly higher in the GBS-positive group.

Discussion: The current study addressed significant variations across the communities of the vaginal microbiome in GBS-positive and GBS-negative women in a Chinese cohort, which paves the way for a larger cohort-based clinical validation study and the development of therapeutic probiotics in the future.

Keywords: Disease transmission; Group B Streptococcus; Microbial colonization; Vaginal microbiome.

Associated data

figshare/10.6084/m9.figshare.7857011.v1

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under contract No. 31471202 (Lei Zhang) and No. 81670822 (Ye Wang), the Shandong Provincial Key Research and Development Program under contract No. 2016YYSP009 (Lei Zhang), Weihai Technique Extension Project under contract No. 2016GNS023 (Lei Zhang), and the Qingdao Key Research project No. 17-3-3-10-nsh (Chunling Zhang). Lei Zhang is also supported by the Taishan Scholars Program of Shandong Province (No. tshw20120206). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.