REVIEW article
Front. Microbiol.
Sec. Systems Microbiology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2025.1578681
Exploring Vaginal Microbiome: From Traditional Methods to Metagenomic Next-Generation Sequencing -A Systematic Review
Provisionally accepted
- 1School of Pharmacy, Chengdu University, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China
- 2School of Computer Science, Chengdu University, Chengdu, China
- 3School of Basic Medical Sciences, Chengdu University, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China
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Recent research has highlighted the vaginal microbiome as a crucial factor in women's health and fertility. The growing recognition of its significance has intensified the focus on studying the female reproductive tract's microbial ecosystem. While various analytical methods exist for examining the vaginal microbiome, metagenomic nextgeneration sequencing (mNGS) has emerged as an auspicious approach. This study examines how mNGS technology can be applied to analyze vaginal microbiota. We begin by exploring the relationship between vaginal bacterial communities and women's health, followed by a comparative analysis of metagenomics against other detection methods, highlighting their respective strengths and limitations. The paper systematically reviews different detection techniques, examining their fundamental principles, constraints, and advantages. Several factors can affect data quality, including sampling procedures, contamination issues, and PCR amplification errors. We suggest implementing third-generation sequencing (TGS) to address these challenges to enhance reproducibility and read length, utilizing single-molecule sequencing to eliminate PCR amplification-related errors, and integrating multiple analytical approaches to provide comprehensive insights. In summary, mNGS technology allows us to collect valuable information at a lower cost, and it remains a leading method for detecting female reproductive tract microbes. The goal of this review is to describe the principle, benefits and drawbacks, and application areas of mNGS, as well as to serve as a reference for research into female reproductive tract microbial detection methods, promote the improvement of mNGS in the detection of female reproductive tract microbial technology, and ensure the health of the female reproductive tract.
Keywords: vaginal microbiome, VAGINAL HEALTH, MNGs, personalized treatment, clinical applications
Received: 18 Feb 2025; Accepted: 23 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Liu, Chen, Zhang, Tang, Zhang, Wang, Zhao, Wang and Li. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Tao Wang, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Chengdu University, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China
Diyan Li, School of Pharmacy, Chengdu University, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.