Findings Thus Far
Preliminary data suggest that
the flora of the vulva varies among normal healthy women. The composition
and prevalence of bacterial phylotypes differed between genital sites and
amongst the women in this study. In comparisons of the two vulva regions
within the same woman, microorganisms of the labia minora were most similar to
the assemblages commonly found in vaginal sites (Xia et al, unpublished data),
while the labia majora was found to harbor a composite community of vaginal,
fecal, and normal skin origin. Differences in the microbial communities
were also often pronounced between women; identity of the dominant bacterial
group varied between women for each genital site, particularly in comparisons of
the labia majoras. These initial results indicate a need for a comparison
of more women in order to gain an understanding of what can be considered normal
vulva microflora across a larger demography.
Current efforts are focused
on completing another round of sequencing with a second plasmid primer, M13
reverse, and building consensus multiple sequence alignments. Compilations
of consensus clone sequences of a 918 nucleotide region of the 16s rDNA will be
used to define differences between phylotype groups in the bacterial community
of each vulva site via phylogenetic methods. |
