Diversity of vaginal microbiome and metabolome during genital tract infections

During transitional reproductive periods in a woman's lifetime, the vaginal microbiome (VM) can affect host physiology as reflection of healthy or diseased condition. The study we conducted was aimed to characterize and compare the VM under four conditions: Healthy Controls (HC), Bacterial Vaginosis (BV) and the less-known vaginal ecosystem changes occurring in Vulvo-vaginal Candidiasis (VVC) and Chlamydia trachomatis (CT) infection. VM composition of 79 women has been analysed through genomic DNA extraction from vaginal swabs, amplification of V3-V4 regions of the 16S rRNA gene and sequencing by MiSeq platform. The reads obtained were processed and analysed using QIIME. Two high performing techniques, i.e. next generation sequencing (NGS) and proton based-nuclear magnetic resonance (1H-NMR) spectroscopy were applied to unravel the vaginal microbiome composition and metabolome fingerprint, respectively. The low characterized ecosystems corresponding to VVC and CT infection were analyzed and compared to the healthy status and BV condition.