Plos Pathogen: How can the vaginal microbiome prevent HIV infection?

December 5, 2020 // -- Healthy Lactobacillus bacteria in the vagina are critical to women's health, but the accumulation of other bacterial genus can lead to imbalances in the vaginal ecosystem.
Based on a study published December 3, 2020 in the journal PLOS Pathogens, Dr. Nicole Klatt of the University of Minnesota School of Medicine and colleagues found that this imbalance may lead to the metabolism of bacteria in drugs designed to prevent HIV infection, thereby reducing their effectiveness and increasing the risk to women.
in the absence of an effective HIV vaccine, alternative strategies, such as pre-exposure prevention (PrEP) drugs, must be used to prevent transmission.
PrEP drugs are very effective in preventing HIV infection in men, but less effective in preventing HIV infection in women.
recent evidence suggests that the vaginal microbiome is associated with an increased risk of HIV infection and may affect the efficacy of PrEP.
in order to better design and evaluate clinical studies of HIV prevention in women, it is important to understand how microorganisms in the female reproductive tract affect the level of therapeutic drugs.
(Photo Source: Www.pixabay.com) In the new study, Klatt and her colleagues used cervical vaginal lotion samples from women with or without bacterial vaginal disease (BV) to study how vaginal bacteria altered PrEP levels and affected HIV infection rates.
is very common in women and is caused by bacteria that cause itching, secretions and discomfort, and is associated with an increase in sexually transmitted infections in women and negative reproductive tract outcomes.
researchers found that BV-related bacteria, rather than healthy Lactobacillus bacteria, can metabolize PrEP drugs and may reduce PrEP's ability to do so due to lower levels of available preventive drugs.
of bacterial vasomy are critical to improving women's effectiveness in HIV prevention, the authors say.
Klatt stressed: "Women's health and the factors that play a role in women's health and disease prevention are rigorously studied.
that there is an urgent need to develop better treatments for bacterial vasody and to promote more research into women's health in general.
() Source: How the vaginal microbiome may affect HIV prevention Source: Cheu RK, Gustin A, Lee C, Schifanella L, Miller CJ, Ha A, et al. (2020) Impact of vaginal microbiome communities on HIV antiretroviral-based pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) drug metabolism. PLoS Pathog 16(12): e1009024. doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1009024。