DNA methylation signatures to predict the cervicovaginal microbiome status.

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND:The composition of the microbiome plays an important role in human health and disease. Whether there is a direct association between the cervicovaginal microbiome and the host's epigenome is largely unexplored. RESULTS:Here we analyzed a total of 448 cervicovaginal smear samples and studied both the DNA methylome of the host and the microbiome using the Illumina EPIC array and next-generation sequencing, respectively. We found that those CpGs that are hypo-methylated in samples with non-lactobacilli (O-type) dominating communities are strongly associated with gastrointestinal differentiation and that a signature consisting of 819 CpGs was able to discriminate lactobacilli-dominating (L-type) from O-type samples with an area under the receiver operator characteristic curve (AUC) of 0.84 (95% CI?=?0.77-0.90) in an independent validation set. The performance found in samples with more than 50% epithelial cells was further improved (AUC 0.87) and in women younger than 50 years of age was even higher (AUC 0.91). In a subset of 96 women, the buccal but not the blood cell DNA showed the same trend as the cervicovaginal samples in discriminating women with L- from O-type cervicovaginal communities. CONCLUSIONS:These findings strongly support the view that the epithelial epigenome plays an essential role in hosting specific microbial communities.

SUBMITTER: Nene NR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7686703 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature