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Background Vaginal microbiota is involved in human papillomavirus (HPV) infection and cervical cancer (CC) progression, and the specific changes in vaginal microbial composition during this process remains uncertain. Objective This study aimed to observe the changes in the specific composition of vaginal microorganisms in different cervical lesions and identify biomarkers at different stages of lesions. Methods In this study we used the illumina high-throughput gene sequencing technology to determine the V4 region of 16SrRNA and observed the vaginal microbial composition in different cervical lesions. Results The vaginal microbiota of patients with high-risk HPV infection and cervical lesions is significantly different from that of the normal population, but there is no significant difference in the richness of vaginal microbes. The diversity of vaginal species in CC patients is higher than that in high-risk HPV infection or CIN patients. The main manifestation is an increase in the diversity of vaginal microbes, a decrease in the relative abundance of cyanobacteria and Lactobacillus, and an increase in the relative abundance of dialister, peptonephila and other miscellaneous bacteria. There are characteristic vaginal biomarker in normal women, high risk HPV patients and CC patients. In detail, the biomarker in the normal group was varibaculum, the biomarker in the high-risk HPV group was saccharopolyspora, the biomarker of the CC group was the Proteobacteria, Corynebacterium, Coprococcus, Peptococcus and Ruminococcus. Conclusions The study indicated that the compositions of vaginal microbes in different cervical lesions is different. The vaginal microbial composition has a certain diagnostic effect on healthy women, patients with high-risk HPV infection and cervical lesions. These microbes may serve as potential biomarkers for CC. It also provided an effective way for the treatment of HPV infections and cervical lesions.
Fan et al. (Fri,) studied this question.