Prevalent high-risk HPV infection and vaginal microbiota in Nigerian women

Abstract

SUMMARYIn this study, we evaluated the association between high-risk human papillomavirus (hrHPV) and the vaginal microbiome. Participants were recruited in Nigeria between April and August 2012. Vaginal bacterial composition was characterized by deep sequencing of barcoded 16S rRNA gene fragments (V4) on Illumina MiSeq and HPV was identified using the Roche Linear Array®HPV genotyping test. We used exact logistic regression models to evaluate the association between community state types (CSTs) of vaginal microbiota and hrHPV infection, weighted UniFrac distances to compare the vaginal microbiota of individuals with prevalent hrHPV to those without prevalent hrHPV infection, and the Linear Discriminant Analysis effect size (LEfSe) algorithm to characterize bacteria associated with prevalent hrHPV infection. We observed four CSTs: CST IV-B with a low relative abundance ofLactobacillusspp. in 50% of participants; CST III (dominated byL. iners) in 39·2%; CST I (dominated byL. crispatus) in 7·9%; and CST VI (dominated by proteobacteria) in 2·9% of participants. LEfSe analysis suggested an association between prevalent hrHPV infection and a decreased abundance ofLactobacillussp. with increased abundance of anaerobes particularly of the generaPrevotellaandLeptotrichiain HIV-negative women (P< 0·05). These results are hypothesis generating and further studies are required.