human penile and rectal microbiome Raw sequence reads

There is limited understanding of the penile and rectal microbiome and associated inflammation among men who have sex with men (MSM), who are disproportionately burdened by HIV. This was a cross-sectional study of community recruited, HIV-negative MSM. Penile and rectal microbiome were characterized from clinician-collected meatal and rectal swabs using high-throughput sequencing of 16S ribosomal RNA gene amplicons. Six cytokines were measured in rectal mucosa and urine by ELISA (IL-1a, IL-1ß, IL-8, IL-10, IP-10, TNF-a) . Multivariable linear regression was used to model cytokine levels as a function of genus relative abundance and sexual practices.