Preterm Births May Be Connected to Microbes In The Birth Canal
What's New Monday
Every Monday, we find something new in the news or research about microbes. This week, we found a recent paper that may have found a connection between premature births and microbes in the vagina.
Last month (August 2023) a new study may have discovered a connection between the vaginal microbiome and preterm birth.
Microdiversity of the vaginal microbiome is associated with preterm birth, specifically Gardnerella spp. It appears that changes in the dominant microbes are connected with a full-term birth (TB) or a preterm birth (PTB).
We further found that the top features contributing to this difference belong to Lactobacillus helveticus (PG081), Lactobacillus crispatus (PG080), Lactobacillus gasseri (PG079), and Lactobacillus jensenii (PG076 and PG077) that are associated with TB (Term Birth) and Megasphaera genomosp. (PG061), Gardnerella spp. (PG047, PG050, PG052), and Atopobium vaginae (PG041) that are associated with PTB (Preterm Birth). ... These results suggest that the vaginal microbiome has a different temporal trajectory during pregnancies ending preterm, consistent with previous findings6,7, and with Gardnerella as an important factor.
What changes the balance could be a host of different things. “Human microbes can adapt to host-induced environmental changes (e.g., diet, antibiotics) through genetic variations29. Therefore, the microbial populations of the same species in different hosts can have a different genetic structure, which provides them a competitive advantage. These genetic differences, in turn, may be related to the phenotype of the host.”
The researchers also found a correlation between antibiotic use and microbial populations shifting toward sPTB. “This result suggests that the more diverse gene pool in G. swidsinskii (PG044) detected in sPTB may be associated with adaptation to drugs present in the environment. This may be consistent with our recent finding that xenobiotics detected in the vaginal environment are strongly associated with sPTB35.”
Source
Liao, J., Shenhav, L., Urban, J.A. et al. Microdiversity of the vaginal microbiome is associated with preterm birth. Nat Commun 14, 4997 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-40719-7