Vaginal microbiome signature is associated with spontaneous preterm birth

AbstractBackground: Preterm birth (PTB) represents important public health and therapeutic challenge. Despite the reported link between the composition of vaginal microbiome and PTB, previous studies were inconsistent in their conclusions and utilized non-uniform designs. We performed an independent case-control study carried out on the Slovenian population, where we re-evaluated the role of the vaginal microbiome in PTB.Methods: Vaginal microbiomes of pregnant women who delivered preterm were compared to those delivered at term to examine differences in the microbial richness, diversity, and differential abundance of specific taxa. We obtained vaginal swab samples from 155 Caucasian women who were classified as either term (≥38+0/7 wks, n=107) or preterm (Results: Women who experienced PTB had a higher microbial richness (Chao1, P=0.011) and alpha diversity (Shannon, P=0.00059) than women with term deliveries. We report that overall vaginal microbial community composition (beta-diversity) was significantly different by delivery gestational age category (PWeighted UnifracConclusions: In the present study, we provide further evidence that vaginal microbiome composition is associated with PTB.