Vaginal microbiota communities identified by clustering techniques in 17 articles.

qPCR = quantitative polymerase chain reaction.
1Includes direct sequencing (next generation sequencing) of DNA extracted from vaginal samples (10), sequencing of culture colonies (2), fingerprinting (3), and qPCR (2); the 5 studies using DNA hybridisation techniques did not employ data clustering and this technique is therefore not represented in this table.
2One qPCR study only assessed L. iners and the other qPCR study did not find clusters dominated by just one Lactobacillus species.
3Other than Lactobacillus spp., the 25 most abundant taxa in the 10 direct sequencing studies consistently (in at least 50% of studies) include: Phylum Actinobacteria: G. vaginalis, A. vaginae, Eggerthella spp., Mobiluncus spp.; Phylum Fermicutes: Lachnospiraceae (including BVAB1-3), Dialister spp., Megasphaera spp., Parvimonas (formerly Peptostreptococcus) spp., Veillonella spp., Streptococcus spp., Staphylococcus, spp., Gemella spp.; Phylum Sfingobacteria: Prevotella spp., Porphyromonas spp., Bacteroides spp.; Phylum Fusobacteria: Sneathia spp., Leptotrichia spp.; Phylum Tenericutes: Mycoplasma spp., Ureaplasma spp.; Phylum Proteobacteria: Escherichia/Shigella spp.
4Includes Streptococcus spp., Staphylococcus spp., Escherichia/Shigella spp., Proteus spp.