RESUMO
The composition of the vaginal microbiota is known to be influenced by various factors and to be associated with several disorders affecting women's health. Although metagenomics is currently a widely used method for studying the human microbiota, it has certain limitations, such as a lack of information on bacterial viability. It is therefore important to use culture-based methods such as culturomics. Here, we used 35 different culture conditions to comprehensively characterize the vaginal bacterial diversity of a single woman's flora. A total of 206 bacterial species, belonging to six phyla (for a little more than half to Firmicutes, followed mainly by Actinobacteria, Bacteroidetes, and Proteobacteria) and 45 families, and 2 fungal species were cultivated. While several species of lactobacilli have been isolated, a wide variety of other bacteria were also separated, including 65 never reported before in vaginal flora, including a new bacterial species, Porphyromonas vaginalis sp. nov. Extensive culture-based methods are essential to establish a comprehensive, evidence-based repertoire of bacterial viability. If combined with molecular methods, they can provide a much more thorough understanding of the vaginal microbiota and fulfil the unknown part of metagenomic studies.
