Diversity of vaginal ecosystem on women in Southern China

In this study, we analyzed the diversity of vaginal microbiota in 9 bacterial vaginosis (BV) positive and 11 healthy women from the metropolitan area of Guangzhou in Southern China using full-length 16S rDNA. Our data confirmed that a shift in the abundance of bacterial species present in the vaginal environment comparing the BV and non-BV groups. Each sequence read was assigned to a genus or a species when possible. Principal component analysis was performed at genus levels. Most BV+ samples clustered together while there were two clusters among the BV- samples. Several bacteria have been found to be highly associated with BV, including Gardnerella, Atopobium, Megasphaera, Leptotrichia/Sneathia, and Prevotella. We found that the presence of any BV-associated organisms alone did not necessary cause BV. We identified several additional non-lactobacillus bacteria associated with BV, including a Coriobacteriaceae bacterium and a Ruminococcaceae bacterium. Our results showed that analysis of vaginal microbiota and the clustering of microbial profile could help identification of bacterial vaginosis and assessment of women´s vaginal health. The presence or absence of certain bacterial species is not adequate for disease diagnosis; rather the prevalence of multiple organisms collectively should be used as markers for a microbial diagnosis of BV.