Factors shaping vaginal microbiota long-term community dynamics in young adult women.

ABSTRACT: The vaginal microbiota is known to affect women's health. Yet, there is a notable paucity of high-resolution follow-up studies lasting several months, which would be required to interrogate the long-term dynamics and associations with demographic and behavioural covariates. Here, we present a high-resolution longitudinal cohort study of 125 women, followed for a median duration of 8.6 months, with a median of 11 samples collected per woman. Using a hierarchical Bayesian Markov model, we characterised the patterns of vaginal microbiota community persistence and transition, simultaneously estimated the impact of 16 covariates and quantified individual variability among women. We showed that "optimal" (Community State Type (CST) I, II, and V) and "sub-optimal" (CST III) communities are more s

SUBMITTER: Kamiya T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7617500 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature