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.