Vaginal Microbiome: Rethinking Health and Disease

Vaginal microbiota form a mutually beneficial relationship with their host and have a major impact on health and disease. In recent years our understanding of vaginal bacterial community composition and structure has significantly broadened as a result of investigators using cultivation-independent methods based on the analysis of 16S ribosomal RNA (rRNA) gene sequences. In asymptomatic, otherwise healthy women, several kinds of vaginal microbiota exist, the majority often dominated by species of Lactobacillus, while others are composed of a diverse array of anaerobic microorganisms. Bacterial vaginosis is the most common vaginal condition and is vaguely characterized as the disruption of the equilibrium of…