Cervicovaginal microbiome and natural history of Chlamydia trachomatis in adolescents and young women

Abstract

This study investigated the cervicovaginal microbiome’s (CVM’s) impact on Chlamydia trachomatis (CT) infection among Black and Hispanic adolescent and young adult women. A total of 187 women with incident CT were matched to 373 controls, and the CVM was characterized before, during, and after CT infection. The findings highlight that a specific subtype of bacterial vaginosis (BV), identified from 16S rRNA gene reads using the molBV algorithm and community state type (CST) clustering, is a significant risk factor for CT acquisition. A microbial risk score (MRS) further identified a network of bacterial genera associated with increased CT risk. Post treatment, the CVM associated with CT acquisition re-emerged in a different subset of cases leading to reinfection. Additionally, the analysis showed a connection between post-treatment CVM and the development of pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) and miscarriage, further underscoring the CVM’s contributing role to incident CT natural history and highlighting its consideration as a therapeutic target.