The urinary tract microbiome in older women exhibits host genetics and environmental influences

The urinary microbiome is a relatively unexplored niche despite the fact that we now know that it is not sterile. Moreover urinary microbes, especially in ageing populations, are associated with morbidity even when infection is subsequently not proven. We present the first large-scale study to explore factors defining urinary microbiome composition in community-dwelling older adult women without any clinically active infection. Using 1600 twins, we estimate the contribution of genetic and environmental factors to variation in microbiome using both 16S and shotgun metagenomics. We found that the urinary microbiome is distinct from nearby sites and is unrelated to stool microbiome. Core urinary microbiome taxa were defined. The first component of weighted unifrac was heritable (18%) as were key taxa (e.g Escherichia-Shigella (A>0.15)). Age, menopausal status, prior UTI and host genetics were top among factors defining the urobiome. Increased composition was associated with older age, contrary to findings in most other body sites.