Vaginal microbiota and human papillomavirus infection among young Swedish women
Liqin Cheng, Johanna Norenhag, Yue Hu, Nele Brusselaers, Emma Fransson, Andreas Ährlund‐Richter, Unnur Guðnadóttir, Pia Angelidou, Yinghua Zha, Marica Hamsten, Ina Schuppe‐Koistinen, Matts Olovsson, Lars Engstrand, Juan Du
Abstract
Human papillomavirus (HPV) infection is one of the most common sexually transmitted diseases. To define the HPV-associated microbial community among a high vaccination coverage population, we carried out a cross-sectional study with 345 young Swedish women. The microbial composition and its association with HPV infection, including 27 HPV types, were analyzed. Microbial alpha-diversity was found significantly higher in the HPV-infected group (especially with oncogenic HPV types and multiple HPV types), compared with the HPV negative group. The vaginal microbiota among HPV-infected women was characterized by a larger number of bacterial vaginosis-associated bacteria (BVAB), Sneathia, Prevotella, and Megasphaera. In addition, the correlation analysis demonstrated that twice as many women with non-Lactobacillus-dominant vaginal microbiota were infected with oncogenic HPV types, compared with L. crispatus-dominated vaginal microbiota. The data suggest that HPV infection, especially oncogenic HPV types, is strongly associated with a non-Lactobacillus-dominant vaginal microbiota, regardless of age and vaccination status.