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Peer-reviewedCC BY 4.0Communications Medicine

Characterizing the composition and diversity of the vaginal microbiome in ovarian cancer

  • April Deveaux1
  • Oyomoare L. Osazuwa-Peters1,2
  • Yeon Ji Kim3
  • Pixu Shi3,4
  • Drew Neish2
  • Ashwini Joshi1
  • Veronica Duck1
  • Ashliegh Williams1
  • Margaret Gates Kuliszewski5
  • Bin Huang6,7
  • Kevin Ward8
  • Maria Pisu9
4 more authors
  • Thomas Tucker7,10
  • Rebecca Previs11
  • Andrew Berchuck12
  • Tomi Akinyemiju1,2
12 affiliations
  1. 1Department of Population Health Sciences, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, NC USA
  2. 2Duke Cancer Institute, Durham, NC USA
  3. 3Microbiome Core Facility, Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, NC USA
  4. 4Biostatistics & Bioinformatics, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, NC USA
  5. 5New York State Cancer Registry, New York State Department of Health, Albany, NY USA
  6. 6Kentucky Cancer Registry, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY USA
  7. 7University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY USA
  8. 8Georgia Cancer Registry, Emory University, Atlanta, GA USA
  9. 9Division of Preventive Medicine and O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL USA
  10. 10Department of Epidemiology and Environmental Health, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY USA
  11. 11Labcorp Oncology, Durham, NC USA
  12. 12Duke Division of Gynecologic Oncology, Durham, NC USA
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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.

Methods: 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.

Results: 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.

Conclusions: 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.

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Cite

BibTeXRIS
BibTeX
@article{deveaux2026characterizing,
  title = {{Characterizing the composition and diversity of the vaginal microbiome in ovarian cancer}},
  author = {April Deveaux and Oyomoare L. Osazuwa-Peters and Yeon Ji Kim and Pixu Shi and Drew Neish and Ashwini Joshi and Veronica Duck and Ashliegh Williams and Margaret Gates Kuliszewski and Bin Huang and Kevin Ward and Maria Pisu and Thomas Tucker and Rebecca Previs and Andrew Berchuck and Tomi Akinyemiju},
  journal = {Communications Medicine},
  year = {2026},
  month = jul,
  doi = {10.1038/s43856-026-01771-8},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1038/s43856-026-01771-8},
  note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY  - JOUR
TI  - Characterizing the composition and diversity of the vaginal microbiome in ovarian cancer
AU  - April Deveaux
AU  - Oyomoare L. Osazuwa-Peters
AU  - Yeon Ji Kim
AU  - Pixu Shi
AU  - Drew Neish
AU  - Ashwini Joshi
AU  - Veronica Duck
AU  - Ashliegh Williams
AU  - Margaret Gates Kuliszewski
AU  - Bin Huang
AU  - Kevin Ward
AU  - Maria Pisu
AU  - Thomas Tucker
AU  - Rebecca Previs
AU  - Andrew Berchuck
AU  - Tomi Akinyemiju
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/07/10
JO  - Communications Medicine
DO  - 10.1038/s43856-026-01771-8
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1038/s43856-026-01771-8
AB  - 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.  Methods: 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.  Results: 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.  Conclusions: 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.
SN  - 2730-664X
ER  -