Cervicovaginal Bacteria Are a Major Modulator of Host Inflammatory Responses in the Female Genital Tract

Anahtar, Melis N.; Byrne, Elizabeth H.; Doherty, Kathleen E.; Bowman, Brittany A.; Yamamoto, Hidemi S.; Soumillon, Magali; Padavattan, Nikita; Ismail, Nasreen; Moodley, Amber; Sabatini, Mary E.; Ghebremichael, Musie; Nusbaum, Chad; Huttenhower, Curtis; Virgin, Herbert W.; Ndung’u, Thumbi; Dong, Krista L.; Walker, Bruce D.; Fichorova, Raina N.; Kwon, Douglas S.

doi:10.1016/j.immuni.2015.04.019

Immunity

2015

DOI: 10.1016/j.immuni.2015.04.019

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Cervicovaginal Bacteria Are a Major Modulator of Host Inflammatory Responses in the Female Genital Tract

Melis N. Anahtar

¹

,

Elizabeth H. Byrne

²

,

Kathleen E. Doherty

³

et al.

Abstract: Colonization by Lactobacillus in the female genital tract is thought to be critical for maintaining genital health. However, little is known about how genital microbiota influence host immune function and modulate disease susceptibility. We studied a cohort of asymptomatic young South African women and found that the majority of participants had genital communities with low Lactobacillus abundance and high ecological diversity. High diversity communities strongly correlated with genital pro-inflammatory cytoki… Show more

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Cited by 770 publications

(966 citation statements)

References 50 publications

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62

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877

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8

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“…This increases confidence that our findings are primarily age related and not driven by the microbiome. However, this does differ from other studies that have reported increased FGT inflammation with nLD microbiota [ 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 ]. The majority of these studies differ from our study in several key ways, including enrolling only pre‐menopausal women or focusing on women with clinically diagnosed bacterial vaginosis.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 99%

Aging Is Associated With Decreased Lactobacillus and Increased Cervicovaginal Inflammation in Canadian Women

Dang

¹

,

Noël‐Romas

²

,

Knodel

³

et al. 2025

American J Rep Immunol

0

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Exaggerated anticipatory anxiety is common in social anxiety disorder (SAD). Neuroimaging studies have revealed altered neural activity in response to social stimuli in SAD, but fewer studies have examined neural activity during anticipation of feared social stimuli in SAD. The current study examined the time course and magnitude of activity in threat processing brain regions during speech anticipation in socially anxious individuals and healthy controls (HC). Method Participants (SAD n = 58; HC n = 16) underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during which they completed a 90s control anticipation task and 90s speech anticipation task.

show abstract

“…This increases confidence that our findings are primarily age related and not driven by the microbiome. However, this does differ from other studies that have reported increased FGT inflammation with nLD microbiota [ 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 ]. The majority of these studies differ from our study in several key ways, including enrolling only pre‐menopausal women or focusing on women with clinically diagnosed bacterial vaginosis.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 99%

Aging Is Associated With Decreased Lactobacillus and Increased Cervicovaginal Inflammation in Canadian Women

Dang

¹

,

Noël‐Romas

²

,

Knodel

³

et al. 2025

American J Rep Immunol

0

Get access via publisher Add to dashboard Cite

Exaggerated anticipatory anxiety is common in social anxiety disorder (SAD). Neuroimaging studies have revealed altered neural activity in response to social stimuli in SAD, but fewer studies have examined neural activity during anticipation of feared social stimuli in SAD. The current study examined the time course and magnitude of activity in threat processing brain regions during speech anticipation in socially anxious individuals and healthy controls (HC). Method Participants (SAD n = 58; HC n = 16) underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during which they completed a 90s control anticipation task and 90s speech anticipation task.

show abstract

“…When examining gene expression between the participant groups with higher and lower diversity bacterial communities, we did not confirm previous findings in the penis ( 4, 6, 12 ) and vagina ( 55 ) that high bacterial diversity, particularly with anaerobic taxa, is associated with increased inflammation. While we frequently identified anaerobic taxa, individual species showed lower prevalence than in studies using surface swabs.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 99%

Bacterial Microbiome and Host Inflammatory Gene Expression in Foreskin Tissue

Maust

¹

,

Petkov

²

,

Herrera

³

et al. 2022

Preprint

Get access via publisher Add to dashboard Cite

Exaggerated anticipatory anxiety is common in social anxiety disorder (SAD). Neuroimaging studies have revealed altered neural activity in response to social stimuli in SAD, but fewer studies have examined neural activity during anticipation of feared social stimuli in SAD. The current study examined the time course and magnitude of activity in threat processing brain regions during speech anticipation in socially anxious individuals and healthy controls (HC). Method Participants (SAD n = 58; HC n = 16) underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during which they completed a 90s control anticipation task and 90s speech anticipation task.

show abstract

“…When examining gene expression between the participant groups with high versus low diversity bacterial communities, we did not confirm previous findings in penile swabs [ 4 , 6 , 12 ] and the vagina [ 64 ] that highly diverse, predominantly anaerobic communities are associated with increased inflammation. While we frequently identified anaerobic taxa, individual species found previously to be inflammatory were present across fewer specimens than in studies using surface swabs, possibly reducing our power to confirm prior associations.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 97%

Bacterial microbiome and host inflammatory gene expression in foreskin tissue

Maust

¹

,

Petkov

²

,

Herrera

³

et al. 2023

Heliyon

Get access via publisher Add to dashboard Cite

Exaggerated anticipatory anxiety is common in social anxiety disorder (SAD). Neuroimaging studies have revealed altered neural activity in response to social stimuli in SAD, but fewer studies have examined neural activity during anticipation of feared social stimuli in SAD. The current study examined the time course and magnitude of activity in threat processing brain regions during speech anticipation in socially anxious individuals and healthy controls (HC). Method Participants (SAD n = 58; HC n = 16) underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during which they completed a 90s control anticipation task and 90s speech anticipation task.

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