Impact of the mycobiome on the health of the female genital tract
type: CreativeWork
description: The female genital tract microbiome comprises a community of microorganisms. Imbalances in the microbiome are associated with vaginal diseases such as bacterial vaginosis (BV) and sexually transmitted infections (STIs). These diseases greatly burden South Africa, and young women in this region are at an increased risk of contracting vaginal diseases. Consequently, it is vital to investigate the factors that influence FGT health. The fungal constituent of the microbiome (the mycobiome) has been demonstrated to play a role in regulating mucosal health, especially when the bacterial component is disturbed. However, we have a limited understanding of the vaginal mycobiome since many microbiome studies have focused on bacterial communities and have neglected low abundance taxonomic groups, such as fungi. To reduce this knowledge deficit, we present the first large-scale metaproteomic study to define the taxonomic composition and potential functional processes of the vaginal mycobiome in South African women. We examined vaginal fungal communities present in optimal and nonoptimal states (BV, STIs, and genital inflammation) by collecting lateral vaginal wall swabs from 123 women for liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. Taxonomic analysis requires representative sequence databases; however, since mycobiome research is relatively new, fungal databases are still in their infancy. As a result, metaproteomic methods are not optimized for fungal research. Therefore, we optimized a metaproteomic approach to increase fungal protein group assignments. With this, 50 fungal proteins belonging to 39 different genera were identified post quality-control and analysed for taxonomic and functional distributions. Taxonomic analysis revealed that the vaginal mycobiome had a high relative abundance of Candida across optimal and non-optimal states. We observed changes in differential abundance at the genus and biological process level between optimal and non-optimal states for BV a…
abstract: The female genital tract microbiome comprises a community of microorganisms. Imbalances in the microbiome are associated with vaginal diseases such as bacterial vaginosis (BV) and sexually transmitted infections (STIs). These diseases greatly burden South Africa, and young women in this region are at an increased risk of contracting vaginal diseases. Consequently, it is vital to investigate the factors that influence FGT health. The fungal constituent of the microbiome (the mycobiome) has been demonstrated to play a role in regulating mucosal health, especially when the bacterial component is disturbed. However, we have a limited understanding of the vaginal mycobiome since many microbiome studies have focused on bacterial communities and have neglected low abundance taxonomic groups, such as fungi. To reduce this knowledge deficit, we present the first large-scale metaproteomic study to define the taxonomic composition and potential functional processes of the vaginal mycobiome in South African women. We examined vaginal fungal communities present in optimal and nonoptimal states (BV, STIs, and genital inflammation) by collecting lateral vaginal wall swabs from 123 women for liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. Taxonomic analysis requires representative sequence databases; however, since mycobiome research is relatively new, fungal databases are still in their infancy. As a result, metaproteomic methods are not optimized for fungal research. Therefore, we optimized a metaproteomic approach to increase fungal protein group assignments. With this, 50 fungal proteins belonging to 39 different genera were identified post quality-control and analysed for taxonomic and functional distributions. Taxonomic analysis revealed that the vaginal mycobiome had a high relative abundance of Candida across optimal and non-optimal states. We observed changes in differential abundance at the genus and biological process level between optimal and non-optimal states for BV a…
author: Gangiah, Tamlyn Kirstey
keywords: Bioinformatics
date published: 2022
date modified: 2026-07-22T22:23:35Z
provider: University of Cape Town
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: Department of Clinical Laboratory Sciences

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: http://hdl.handle.net/11427/37109