In humans, the vaginal microbiota is thought to be the first line of defense again pathogens including Chlamydia trachomatis. The guinea pig has been extensively used as a model to study chlamydial infection because it shares anatomical and physiological similarities with humans, such as a squamous vaginal epithelium as well as some of the long-term outcomes caused by chlamydial infection. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the guinea pig - C. caviae model of genital infection as a surrogate for studying the role of the vaginal microbiota in the early steps of C. trachomatis infection in humans. We used culture-independent molecular methods to characterize the relative and absolute abundance of bacterial phylotypes in the guinea pig vaginal microbiota in animals non-infected, mock-infected or infected by C. caviae. We showed that the guinea pig and human vaginal microbiotas are of different bacterial composition and abundance. C. caviae infection had a profound effect on the absolute abundance of bacterial phylotypes but not on the composition of the guinea pig vaginal microbiota. Our findings compromise the validity of the guinea pig - C. caviae model to study the role of the vaginal microbiota during the early steps of sexually transmitted infection.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 4. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 24 February 2016.
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#8,648,399
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#234
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Outputs of similar age
#87,862
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Outputs of similar age from Pathogens and Disease
#2
of 16 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 27,629,018 research outputs across all sources so far. This one has received more attention than most of these and is in the 68th percentile.
So far Altmetric has tracked 759 research outputs from this source. They receive a mean Attention Score of 4.8. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 68% of its peers.
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We're also able to compare this research output to 16 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done well, scoring higher than 87% of its contemporaries.
