{
  "abstract": "Background: Vaginal dysbiosis, characterized by Lactobacillus depletion and anaerobic enrichment, may be relevant to ovarian cancer (OC) outcomes, yet comprehensive microbiome characterization in OC patients remains limited. Here, we characterize the prevalence and predictors of vaginal microbiome dysbiosis among racially diverse OC patients in the US.\n\nMethods: We performed 16S rRNA gene sequencing on vaginal samples from 132 OC patients recruited as part of the population-based ORCHiD study. Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA), a computational topic modeling approach, was applied to identify distinct microbial community signatures representing co-occurring bacterial taxa.\n\nResults: Here, we show that Lactobacillus is detected in only 47.7% of patients. Topic modeling identifies seven distinct microbial signatures spanning Lactobacillus-dominated and anaerobe-enriched community types. Anaerobic bacterial enrichment (Peptoniphilus, Anaerococcus) increases significantly with age (approximately 35% per decade of life, FDR q = 0.019). Racial differences are observed, with non-Hispanic Black patients demonstrating a 5-fold higher prevalence of an Actinomycetaceae-classified amplicon sequence variant (ASV54) compared with non-Hispanic white patients (40.9% vs 8.2%, FDR q = 0.005), while Lactobacillus crispatus is detected only among non-Hispanic white patients (6.4% vs 0%) in this cohort.\n\nConclusions: These findings demonstrate a high burden of vaginal microbiome dysbiosis among OC patients and identify age- and race-associated microbial patterns that may be relevant to understanding disparities in OC outcomes.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [
    "Department of Population Health Sciences, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, NC USA",
    "Duke Cancer Institute, Durham, NC USA",
    "Microbiome Core Facility, Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, NC USA",
    "Biostatistics & Bioinformatics, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, NC USA",
    "New York State Cancer Registry, New York State Department of Health, Albany, NY USA",
    "Kentucky Cancer Registry, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY USA",
    "University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY USA",
    "Georgia Cancer Registry, Emory University, Atlanta, GA USA",
    "Division of Preventive Medicine and O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL USA",
    "Department of Epidemiology and Environmental Health, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY USA",
    "Labcorp Oncology, Durham, NC USA",
    "Duke Division of Gynecologic Oncology, Durham, NC USA"
  ],
  "article_type": "research article",
  "arxiv": null,
  "author_total": 16,
  "authors": [
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "April Deveaux",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-1185-7750"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0,
        1
      ],
      "name": "Oyomoare L. Osazuwa-Peters"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        2
      ],
      "name": "Yeon Ji Kim",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-1118-5026"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        2,
        3
      ],
      "name": "Pixu Shi"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        1
      ],
      "name": "Drew Neish"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "Ashwini Joshi"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "Veronica Duck",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-8600-5640"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "Ashliegh Williams"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        4
      ],
      "name": "Margaret Gates Kuliszewski",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-2111-6227"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        5,
        6
      ],
      "name": "Bin Huang"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        7
      ],
      "name": "Kevin Ward"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        8
      ],
      "name": "Maria Pisu"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        6,
        9
      ],
      "name": "Thomas Tucker"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        10
      ],
      "name": "Rebecca Previs",
      "orcid": "0000-0001-8087-9120"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        11
      ],
      "name": "Andrew Berchuck"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0,
        1
      ],
      "name": "Tomi Akinyemiju"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/2btgs1he6s532.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.1038/s43856-026-01771-8",
  "fulltext_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC13728130/",
  "id": "2btgs1he6s532",
  "issns": [
    "2730-664X"
  ],
  "landing_url": "https://doi.org/10.1038/s43856-026-01771-8",
  "language": "en",
  "licence": "CC-BY-4.0",
  "licence_label": "CC BY 4.0",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": null,
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "heading",
      "Article"
    ],
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      "openalex",
      "2404|Reproductive tract infections research"
    ]
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  "openalex": "W7167928100",
  "pdf_url": "https://www.nature.com/articles/s43856-026-01771-8_reference.pdf",
  "pmcid": "PMC13728130",
  "pmid": "42432305",
  "published": "2026-07-10",
  "publisher": "Nature Publishing Group",
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/2btgs1he6s532.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-11-06T12:23:52Z",
      "native_id": "PMC13728130",
      "source": "pmc",
      "url": "https://doi.org/10.1038/s43856-026-01771-8"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "biology",
      "origin": "openalex:2404|Reproductive tract infections research",
      "subfield": "microbiology"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Characterizing the composition and diversity of the vaginal microbiome in ovarian cancer",
  "title_text": "Characterizing the composition and diversity of the vaginal microbiome in ovarian cancer",
  "type": "peer-reviewed",
  "updated_at": "2026-11-07T12:21:10Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/2btgs1he6s532",
  "venue": "Communications Medicine",
  "versions": []
}