16S V3-V4 rRNA gene sequencing of clinician-collected bacterial vaginosis diagnosed samples

Bacterial vaginosis (BV) poses a significant health burden for women during reproductive years and onward. Current BV diagnostics rely on either physical and microscopic evaluations by technicians or panels of select microbes. Here, we sequenced the microbiome profiles of samples previously diagnosed by the Labcorp NuSwab test to better understand disruptions to the vaginal microbiome during BV. We show that microbial sequencing can reproduce targeted panel diagnostic results, while also broadly characterizing healthy and BV-associated microbial and metabolic biomarkers. This work highlights a robust, agnostic BV classification scheme with potential for future development of sequencing-based BV diagnostic tools.

细菌性阴道病（Bacterial vaginosis, BV）对育龄及后续年龄段女性群体造成了沉重的健康负担。当前的BV诊断手段主要依赖技术人员开展的体格检查与显微镜镜检，或是靶向微生物检测组分析。本研究对此前通过Labcorp NuSwab检测完成确诊的样本进行微生物组测序分析，以期更深入地阐明BV发作时阴道微生物组的失衡机制。研究结果证实，微生物组测序不仅可以复现靶向检测组的诊断结果，还能全面刻画健康状态与BV相关的微生物及代谢生物标志物特征。本研究提出了一种稳健且无偏倚的BV分类方案，为未来开发基于测序技术的BV诊断工具提供了可行前景。