Cargando…

A new hypothesis on BV etiology: dichotomous and crisscrossing categorization of complex versus simple on healthy versus BV vaginal microbiomes

It has been estimated that bacterial vaginosis (BV) influences as many as one-third of women, but its etiology remains unclear. A traditionally held view is that dominance by Lactobacillus is the hallmark of a healthy vaginal microbiome (VM) and lack of dominance may make women BV-prone. A more rece...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor principal: Ma, Zhanshan (Sam)
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: American Society for Microbiology 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10654060/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37646521
http://dx.doi.org/10.1128/msystems.00049-23
_version_ 1785136548599037952
author Ma, Zhanshan (Sam)
author_facet Ma, Zhanshan (Sam)
author_sort Ma, Zhanshan (Sam)
collection PubMed
description It has been estimated that bacterial vaginosis (BV) influences as many as one-third of women, but its etiology remains unclear. A traditionally held view is that dominance by Lactobacillus is the hallmark of a healthy vaginal microbiome (VM) and lack of dominance may make women BV-prone. A more recent characterization is that the human VMs can be classified into five major types, four of which possess type-specific dominant species of Lactobacillus. The remaining one (type IV) is not dominated by Lactobacillus and contains a handful of strictly anaerobic bacteria. Nevertheless, exceptions to the first hypothesis have been noticed from the very beginning, and there is not a definite relationship, suggested yet, between the five VM types and BV status. Here, we propose a novel hypothesis that assumes the existence of four VM types from dichotomous crisscrossing of “complex versus simple (high-diversity or low-dominance versus low-diversity or high-dominance)” on “healthy versus BV” (the four essential dimensions of VMs). We comprehensively test the hypothesis with 7,958 VM samples by demonstrating the statistically significant differences between the four VM types in community diversity, composition, dominance, heterogeneity, and stochasticity, and by identifying unique/enriched species in each VM type. We further verified the categorization (hypothesis) by using six machine learning (ML) algorithms, including deep learning artificial intelligence (AI) technology, to reclassify the randomly mixed VM samples into four respective types and achieved 85%–100% classification precisions. Our hypothesis provides a foundation for further investigating the etiology and automatic diagnosis of BV based on inexpensive amplicon sequencing and AI technology. IMPORTANCE: BV may influence as many as one-third of women, but its etiology remains unclear. A traditional view is that dominance by Lactobacillus is the hallmark of a healthy vaginal microbiome and lack of dominance may make women BV-prone. Recent studies show that the human VMs can be classified into five major types, four of which possess type-specific dominant species of Lactobacillus. The remaining one (type IV) is not dominated by Lactobacillus and contains a handful of strictly anaerobic bacteria. Nevertheless, exceptions to the first hypothesis have been noticed from the very beginning, and there is not a definite relationship, suggested yet, between the five VM types and BV status. Here, we propose and test a novel hypothesis that assumes the existence of four VM types from dichotomous crisscrossing of “complex versus simple (high diversity or low dominance versus low diversity or high dominance)” on “healthy versus BV.” Consequently, there are simple BV versus complex BV.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-10654060
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2023
publisher American Society for Microbiology
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-106540602023-08-30 A new hypothesis on BV etiology: dichotomous and crisscrossing categorization of complex versus simple on healthy versus BV vaginal microbiomes Ma, Zhanshan (Sam) mSystems Research Article It has been estimated that bacterial vaginosis (BV) influences as many as one-third of women, but its etiology remains unclear. A traditionally held view is that dominance by Lactobacillus is the hallmark of a healthy vaginal microbiome (VM) and lack of dominance may make women BV-prone. A more recent characterization is that the human VMs can be classified into five major types, four of which possess type-specific dominant species of Lactobacillus. The remaining one (type IV) is not dominated by Lactobacillus and contains a handful of strictly anaerobic bacteria. Nevertheless, exceptions to the first hypothesis have been noticed from the very beginning, and there is not a definite relationship, suggested yet, between the five VM types and BV status. Here, we propose a novel hypothesis that assumes the existence of four VM types from dichotomous crisscrossing of “complex versus simple (high-diversity or low-dominance versus low-diversity or high-dominance)” on “healthy versus BV” (the four essential dimensions of VMs). We comprehensively test the hypothesis with 7,958 VM samples by demonstrating the statistically significant differences between the four VM types in community diversity, composition, dominance, heterogeneity, and stochasticity, and by identifying unique/enriched species in each VM type. We further verified the categorization (hypothesis) by using six machine learning (ML) algorithms, including deep learning artificial intelligence (AI) technology, to reclassify the randomly mixed VM samples into four respective types and achieved 85%–100% classification precisions. Our hypothesis provides a foundation for further investigating the etiology and automatic diagnosis of BV based on inexpensive amplicon sequencing and AI technology. IMPORTANCE: BV may influence as many as one-third of women, but its etiology remains unclear. A traditional view is that dominance by Lactobacillus is the hallmark of a healthy vaginal microbiome and lack of dominance may make women BV-prone. Recent studies show that the human VMs can be classified into five major types, four of which possess type-specific dominant species of Lactobacillus. The remaining one (type IV) is not dominated by Lactobacillus and contains a handful of strictly anaerobic bacteria. Nevertheless, exceptions to the first hypothesis have been noticed from the very beginning, and there is not a definite relationship, suggested yet, between the five VM types and BV status. Here, we propose and test a novel hypothesis that assumes the existence of four VM types from dichotomous crisscrossing of “complex versus simple (high diversity or low dominance versus low diversity or high dominance)” on “healthy versus BV.” Consequently, there are simple BV versus complex BV. American Society for Microbiology 2023-08-30 /pmc/articles/PMC10654060/ /pubmed/37646521 http://dx.doi.org/10.1128/msystems.00049-23 Text en Copyright © 2023 Ma. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Research Article
Ma, Zhanshan (Sam)
A new hypothesis on BV etiology: dichotomous and crisscrossing categorization of complex versus simple on healthy versus BV vaginal microbiomes
title A new hypothesis on BV etiology: dichotomous and crisscrossing categorization of complex versus simple on healthy versus BV vaginal microbiomes
title_full A new hypothesis on BV etiology: dichotomous and crisscrossing categorization of complex versus simple on healthy versus BV vaginal microbiomes
title_fullStr A new hypothesis on BV etiology: dichotomous and crisscrossing categorization of complex versus simple on healthy versus BV vaginal microbiomes
title_full_unstemmed A new hypothesis on BV etiology: dichotomous and crisscrossing categorization of complex versus simple on healthy versus BV vaginal microbiomes
title_short A new hypothesis on BV etiology: dichotomous and crisscrossing categorization of complex versus simple on healthy versus BV vaginal microbiomes
title_sort new hypothesis on bv etiology: dichotomous and crisscrossing categorization of complex versus simple on healthy versus bv vaginal microbiomes
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10654060/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37646521
http://dx.doi.org/10.1128/msystems.00049-23
work_keys_str_mv AT mazhanshansam anewhypothesisonbvetiologydichotomousandcrisscrossingcategorizationofcomplexversussimpleonhealthyversusbvvaginalmicrobiomes
AT mazhanshansam newhypothesisonbvetiologydichotomousandcrisscrossingcategorizationofcomplexversussimpleonhealthyversusbvvaginalmicrobiomes