Dataset Information

The penile microbiota of Black South African men: relationship with human papillomavirus and HIV infection.

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND:To date, the microbiota of the human penis has been studied mostly in connection with circumcision, HIV risk and female partner bacterial vaginosis (BV). These studies have shown that male circumcision reduces penile anaerobic bacteria, that greater abundance of penile anaerobic bacteria is correlated with increased cytokine levels and greater risk of HIV infection, and that the penile microbiota is an important harbour for BV-associated bacteria. While circumcision has been shown to significantly reduce the risk of acquiring human papillomavirus (HPV) infection, the relationship of the penile microbiota with HPV is still unknown. In this study, we examined the penile microbiota of HPV-infected men as well as the impact of HIV status. RESULTS:The penile skin microbiota of 238 men from Cape Town (South Africa) were profiled using Illumina sequencing of the V3-V4 hypervariable regions of the 16S rRNA gene. Corynebacterium and Prevotella were found to be the most abundant genera. Six distinct community state types (CSTs) were identified. CST-1, dominated by Corynebacterium, corresponded to less infections with high-risk HPV (HR-HPV) relative to CSTs 2-6. Men in CST-5 had greater relative abundances of Prevotella, Clostridiales, and Porphyromonas and a lower relative abundance of Corynebacterium. Moreover, they were significantly more likely to have HPV or HR-HPV infections than men in CST-1. Using a machine learning approach, we identified greater relative abundances of the anaerobic BV-associated bacteria (Prevotella, Peptinophilus, and Dialister) and lower relative abundance of Corynebacterium in HR-HPV-infected men compared to HR-HPV-uninfected men. No association was observed between HIV and CST, although the penile microbiota of HIV-infected men had greater relative abundances of Staphylococcus compared to HIV-uninfected men. CONCLUSIONS:We found significant differences in the penile microbiota composition of men with and without HPV and HIV infections. HIV and HR-HPV infections were strongly associated with greater relative abundances of Staphylococcus and BV-associated bacterial taxa (notably Prevotella, Peptinophilus and Dialister), respectively. It is possible that these taxa could increase susceptibility to HIV and HR-HPV acquisition, in addition to creating conditions in which infections persist. Further longitudinal studies are required to establish causal relationships and to determine the extent of the effect.

SUBMITTER: Onywera H

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7137192 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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The penile microbiota of Black South African men: relationship with human papillomavirus and HIV infection.

Onywera Harris H Williamson Anna-Lise AL Cozzuto Luca L Bonnin Sarah S Mbulawa Zizipho Z A ZZA Coetzee David D Ponomarenko Julia J Meiring Tracy L TL

BMC microbiology 20200406 1

<h4>Background</h4>To date, the microbiota of the human penis has been studied mostly in connection with circumcision, HIV risk and female partner bacterial vaginosis (BV). These studies have shown that male circumcision reduces penile anaerobic bacteria, that greater abundance of penile anaerobic bacteria is correlated with increased cytokine levels and greater risk of HIV infection, and that the penile microbiota is an important harbour for BV-associated bacteria. While circumcision has been s ...[more]

PMID: 32252632

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Project description:An intronic single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in RICH2 (rs2072255; 255i), in complete linkage disequilibrium (LD) with an exonic SNP (rs2072254; 254e), has been identified in a genome wide association study to be associated with progression to AIDS in Caucasian individuals. RICH2 links tetherin to the cortical actin network and the RICH2/tetherin interaction has been shown to be important for the downstream activation of NF-κβ and the consequential promotion of proinflammatory responses. We investigated the role of these two SNPs in natural control of HIV-1 in black South Africans including healthy controls (HCs; N=102) and antiretroviral-naive HIV-1-infected controllers (HICs; N=52) and progressors (N=74). HICs were stratified as elite controllers (ECs; N=11), viraemic controllers (VCs; N=30), high viral load (VL) long term non-progressors (HVL LTNPs; N=11) and also according to VL<400RNA copies/ml (HICs VL<400; N=20) and VL>400RNA copies/ml (HICs VL>400; N=32). Results showed that in contrast to Caucasians who had very strong LD between these SNPs (r2=0.97), black populations exhibited low LD (r2=0.11-0.27), however a 254e minor allele was always present with a 255i minor allele but not vice versa. The SNPs did not show significant over- or underrepresentation in any particular group, however the combination of 254e major allele homozygosity and 255i heterozygosity (254eAA/255iGA) was underrepresented in HICs (OR=3.26; P=0.04) and VCs (OR=7.77; P=0.02) compared to HCs, and in HICs VL>400 compared to both HCs (P=0.002) and progressors (P=0.02). A lower CD4+ T-cell count was associated with 254eAA/255iGA and 255i (GA+AA) in the total HIV-1-infected group (P=0.043) and progressors (P=0.017), respectively. In silico analysis predicted loss of an exonic splice enhancer site with the 254e-G allele. We postulate that altered splicing of RICH2 will affect levels of RICH2 expression and consequently NF-κβ activation. These findings point to a role for RICH2 and tetherin in viraemic natural control of HIV-1.

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Dataset Information

The penile microbiota of Black South African men: relationship with human papillomavirus and HIV infection.

Publications

The penile microbiota of Black South African men: relationship with human papillomavirus and HIV infection.

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