Changes in the vaginal microbiota associated with primary ovarian failure

Abstract

Background: Primary ovary failure (POF) is defined as follicular failure in women of reproductive age. Although many factors are speculated to contribute to the occurrence of POF, the exact aetiology is unclear. Alterations in the microbiome of women with POF are poorly studied; Methods: This study investigated the vaginal microbiota of 22 patients with POF and 29 healthy individuals. High-throughput Illumina Miseq sequencing targeting the V3-V4 region of the 16S ribosomal RNA (rRNA) gene was used to evaluate the relationships between vaginal flora and clinical characteristics of POF. Results: Different from before, we found that the diversity and richness of the vaginal flora of patients with POF was significantly different from that of healthy controls. Comparison of the flora of patients with POF with that of menopausal women revealed that the relative abundance of Lactobacillus was significantly reduced in the latter, and women with reduced relative abundance of Lactobacillus in microbiota community decreased the pregnancy success rate at term. The result suggests the present study enabled identification of microbiota associated with POF, further investigations of differences in the microbiota in the context of POF will improve our understanding of the pathogenesis of the disease which involve modification of the vaginal microbiota. Conclusion: The present study identified the microbiota associated with POF. Further investigations on the differences in the microbiota in the context of POF will improve our understanding of the pathogenesis of the disease which involves modification of the vaginal microbiota.