Dietary amino acids, macronutrients, vaginal birth, and breastfeeding are associated with the vaginal microbiome in early pregnancy
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
The vaginal microbiome is a key player in the etiology of spontaneous preterm birth. This study aimed to illustrate maternal environmental factors associated with vaginal microbiota composition and function in pregnancy. Women in healthy pregnancy had vaginal microbial sampling from the posterior vaginal fornix performed at 16 weeks gestation. After shotgun metagenomic sequencing, heatmaps of relative abundance data were generated. Community state type (CST) was assigned, and alpha diversity was calculated. Demography, obstetric history, well-being, exercise, and diet using food frequency questionnaires were collected and compared against microbial parameters. A total of 119 pregnant participants had vaginal metagenomic sequencing performed. Factors with strongest association with beta diversity were dietary lysine (adj-R2 0.113, P = 0.002), valine (adj-R2 0.096, P = 0.004), leucine (adj-R2 0.086, P = 0.003), and phenylalanine (adj-R2 0.085, P = 0.005, Fig. 2D). Previous vaginal delivery and breastfeeding were associated with vaginal beta diversity (adj-R2 0.048, P = 0.003; adj-R2 0.045, P = 0.004), accounting for 8.5% of taxonomy variation on redundancy analysis. Dietary fat, starch, and maltose were positively correlated with alpha diversity (fat +0.002 SD/g, P = 0.025; starch +0.002 SD/g, P = 0.043; maltose +0.440 SD/g, P = 0.013), particularly in secretor-positive women. Functional signature was associated with CST, maternal smoking, and dietary phenylalanine, accounting for 8.9%–11% of the variation in vaginal microbiome functional signature. Dietary amino acids, previous vaginal delivery, and breastfeeding history were associated with vaginal beta diversity. Functional signature of the vaginal microbiome differed with community state type, smoking, dietary phenylalanine, and vitamin K. Increased alpha diversity correlated with dietary fat and starch. These data provide a novel snapshot into the associations between maternal environment, nutrition, and the vaginal microbiome.
Editor(s)
Li, Diyan
Date Issued
2024-11-05
Date Acceptance
2024-07-29
Citation
Microbiology Spectrum, 2024, 12 (11)
ISSN
2165-0497
Publisher
American Society for Microbiology
Journal / Book Title
Microbiology Spectrum
Volume
12
Issue
11
Copyright Statement
Copyright © 2024 Corbett et al. This is an openaccess article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.
License URL
Identifier
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/39365058
Subjects
alpha diversity
BACTERIA
beta diversity
community state type
diet
ECOLOGY
environmental
exercise
FUT2
Life Sciences & Biomedicine
METABOLISM
metagenomic sequencing
Microbiology
microbiota
MODULATION
PATTERNS
pregnancy
Science & Technology
vagina
Publication Status
Published
Coverage Spatial
United States
Article Number
e01130-24
Date Publish Online
2024-10-04