Vaginal microecological changes of different degrees of cervical lesions in Hakka women in Meizhou City

Abstract

Research shows an association between vaginal microbiota and the development of cervical cancer, but the role of altered microbiota in cancer development remains controversial. In this study, we attempted to reveal the vaginal microecological changes in cervical lesions by 16S rRNA gene sequencing. Vaginal secretions were collected from Hakka women in Meizhou City, Guangdong Province, China. The diversity, composition and the correlations among species of the vaginal microbiota were determined by sequencing the bacterial 16S rRNA gene. The microbial functional abundance was detected via KEGG and COG (Clusters of Orthologous Groups). The results showed that the Cancer group was characterised by evident changes in the composition of the vaginal microbiota, increased alpha diversity, and altered community structure distribution and microbial interaction network. Linear discriminant analysis (LDA) effect size showed that 21 bacterial species were abundant in the Cancer group. In addition, the loss of Lactobacillus stimulated other flora proliferation, resulting in a microecological disturbance. KEGG and COG analysis indicated the cancer group is mainly concentrated in energy metabolism. In short, the vaginal microecology of Hakka women in Meizhou City presents with different degrees of cervical lesions, and the flora imbalance is an important factor in the development of cervical cancer.

IMPACT STATEMENT

• What is already known on this subject? Cervical cancer is one of the most common gynecological malignancies worldwide and has become a prominent public health problem.

• What the results of this study add? Our study showed that the type of vaginal community status of Hakka women in Meizhou area was characterised by L. Iners predominates, and the gradual loss of Lactobacillus dominance in vaginal bacteria is key to microecological imbalance.

• What the implications are of these findings for clinical practice and/or further research? Disturbances in vaginal microecology can stimulate energy metabolism and lipid metabolism to induce cervical cancer development.

Keywords:

• Cervical lesions
• vaginal microbiota
• microecological changes
• 16S rRNA gene sequencing

Ethical approval

The study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Meizhou people’s Hospital(2019-C-83), and all patients involved in this study signed the informed consent form.

Authors’ contributions

Conceptualisation: Weihong Zeng, Lishan Huang and Boming Wu; data collection: Ye Liang, Jingqing Zhou and Yaoxiang Zhong; formal analysis and original draft preparation: Haihong Lin, Haochang Liu and Haikun Yang; review and editing: Danfeng He, Jizhong Wen and Nanxiang Lei. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability statement

The data used to support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon request.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Research and cultivation project of Meizhou people’s Hospital (PY-C2019029).