Transition in vaginal Lactobacillus species during pregnancy and prediction of preterm birth in Korean women

Young Ah You, Sunwha Park, Kwangmin Kim, Eun Jin Kwon, Young Min Hur, Soo Min Kim, Gain Lee, Abu Zar Ansari, Junhyung Park, Young Ju Kim

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

4 Scopus citations

Abstract

The predominance of vaginal Lactobacillus species, specifically L. crispatus, is important for pregnancy maintenance, but varies by race. The composition of the vaginal microbiome can affect susceptibility to adverse pregnancy outcomes. We performed 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing on vaginal swabs taken from Korean pregnant women. Here, we report the transition of Lactobacillus spp. in samples of full-term birth (FTB) collected longitudinally in the second and third trimesters of pregnancy in a cohort study (n = 23) and their association with Lactobacillus abundance and preterm birth (PTB) in a case–control study (n = 200). Lactobacillus species, which was dominant in FTB samples including those that received interventions in the second trimester, did not change until 37 weeks of gestation. However, L. crispatus was replaced by other Lactobacillus species after 37 weeks. The PTB risk showed a closer association with the Lactobacillus abundance than with community state type determined by Lactobacillus species. PTB was associated with less than 90% of Lactobacillus abundance and an increase in Ureplasma parvum in the second trimester. Thus, the vaginal microbiome may change in preparation for childbirth in response to multiple intrinsic factors after 37 weeks of gestation. Monitoring the Lactobacillus abundance may help improve the reliability of microbial PTB biomarkers.

Original languageEnglish
Article number22303
JournalScientific Reports
Volume12
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 2022

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This research was supported by funding from the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF-2020R1A2C3011850 and NRF-2020R1I1A1A01071955) and the BK21 FOUR (Fostering Outstanding Universities for Research) funded by the Ministry of Education and NRF (NRF-5199990614253). This research (Young-Ah You) was also supported by the RP-Grant 2020 from Ewha Womans University. We would like to thank Editage ( www.editage.co.kr ) for English language editing.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, The Author(s).

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