title: Temporal dynamics of the human vaginal microbiota.
abstract: Elucidating the factors that impinge on the stability of bacterial communities in the vagina may help in predicting the risk of diseases that affect women's health. Here, we describe the temporal dynamics of the composition of vaginal bacterial communities in 32 reproductive-age women over a 16-week period. The analysis revealed the dynamics of five major classes of bacterial communities and showed that some communities change markedly over short time periods, whereas others are relatively stable. Modeling community stability using new quantitative measures indicates that deviation from stability correlates with time in the menstrual cycle, bacterial community composition, and sexual activity. The women studied are healthy; thus, it appears that neither variation in community composition per se nor higher levels of observed diversity (co-dominance) are necessarily indicative of dysbiosis.
authors.affiliation: Institute for Genome Sciences, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21201, USA.
authors.forename: Pawel
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Gajer
authors.forename: Rebecca M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Brotman
authors.forename: Guoyun
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Bai
authors.forename: Joyce
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Sakamoto
authors.forename: Ursel M E
authors.initials: UM
authors.lastname: Schütte
authors.forename: Xue
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhong
authors.forename: Sara S K
authors.initials: SS
authors.lastname: Koenig
authors.forename: Li
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Fu
authors.forename: Zhanshan Sam
authors.initials: ZS
authors.lastname: Ma
authors.forename: Xia
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.forename: Zaid
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Abdo
authors.forename: Larry J
authors.initials: LJ
authors.lastname: Forney
authors.forename: Jacques
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ravel
mesh_terms: D001419:Bacteria / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D009682:Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy; D055442:Metabolome; D055432:Metabolomics; D054892:Metagenome / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D008954:Models, Biological; D010802:Phylogeny; D013997:Time Factors; D014621:Vagina / Q000382:microbiology*