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The colonized microbiota composition in the peritoneal fluid in women with endometriosis

  • Gynecologic Endocrinology and Reproductive Medicine
  • Published:
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Abstract

Purpose

The imbalance of microbiome in vivo is believed to be involved in the pathogenicity of endometriosis. This study aimed to investigate and analyze the composition of bacterial communities in the peritoneal fluid of women with endometriosis.

Methods

To collect peritoneal fluid samples from women with (N = 36) and without (N = 25) endometriosis in a generalized hospital in Hunan, China during January to December of 2019. Genomic DNA was extracted from peritoneal fluid samples, and targeted amplified for the V4 region of 16S ribosomal RNA gene followed by amplicon sequencing. Non-parametric Wilcoxon rank-sum test and chi‐squared test were used to compare and analysis the difference between groups.

Results

Analysis showed that microbiota diversity was similar in the peritoneal fluid of women with or without endometriosis. Ralstonia mainly dominated in the peritoneal fluid of patients in both groups, with an overall relative abundance of 11.15% (95% CI: 10.51–11.80%) in endometriosis patients, followed by Acinetobacter, Pseudomonas, Asticcacaulis, and Methyloversatilis, with no significant difference between endometriosis patients and the control group. Nevertheless, there were microbes with different abundance in peritoneal fluid of the two groups, and the relative abundance was less than 0.5%. Acidovorax (P = 0.01), Devosia (P = 0.03), Methylobacterium (P = 0.03), Phascolarctobacterium (P = 0.03), and Streptococcus (P = 0.04) were more abundant in the peritoneal fluid of endometriosis patients than the controls, while Brevundimonas (P = 0.01) and Stenotrophomonas (P = 0.04) were less abundant.

Conclusion

The composition of minority microbiota including Acidovorax, Devosia, Methylobacterium, Phascolarctobacterium, and Streptococcus in peritoneal fluid were found to change among women with endometriosis. Further research is needed to explore the mechanisms of these microorganisms in the pathophysiology of endometriosis.

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Availability of data and materials

The datasets used and analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

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Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant 81873826) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of Central South University(reference:2021zzts1061).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, The Second Xiangya Hospital of Central South University, 139 Middle Renmin Road, Changsha, 410011, Hunan, China

    Wen Yuan, Xiaoshan Chai & Xianqing Wu

  2. Department of Gynecology, Hunan Provincial People’s Hospital, Changsha, 410005, Hunan, China

    Yahong Wu

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  1. Wen Yuan
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Contributions

WY, YW, XC, and XW conceived and designed research; WY, YW, and XW collected data and conducted research; WY and YW analyzed and interpreted data; WY wrote the initial paper; XW and XC revised the paper; and XW had primary responsibility for final content. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Xianqing Wu.

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Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Ethics approval

This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Second Xiangya Hospital of Central South University, Hunan, China (date of approval: January 2018). All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethics standards of the institutional and national research committee (ethical clearance number: 2018065) and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethics standards.

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Written informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Yuan, W., Wu, Y., Chai, X. et al. The colonized microbiota composition in the peritoneal fluid in women with endometriosis. Arch Gynecol Obstet 305, 1573–1580 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00404-021-06338-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00404-021-06338-7

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