Materno-fetal and Obstetrics Research Unit, Department Woman-Mother-Child, Lausanne University Hospital, 1011 Lausanne, Switzerland.
360° Fertility Center Zurich, 8702 Zollikon, Switzerland.
Int J Mol Sci. 2023 Apr 8;24(8):6939. doi: 10.3390/ijms24086939.
The human body is vastly colonised by microorganisms, whose impact on health is increasingly recognised. The human genital tract hosts a diverse microbiota, and an increasing number of studies on the male genital tract microbiota suggest that bacteria have a role in male infertility and pathological conditions, such as prostate cancer. Nevertheless, this research field remains understudied. The study of bacterial colonisation of the male genital tract is highly impacted by the invasive nature of sampling and the low abundance of the microbiota. Therefore, most studies relied on the analysis of semen microbiota to describe the colonisation of the male genital tract (MGT), which was thought to be sterile. The aim of this narrative review is to present the results of studies that used next-generation sequencing (NGS) to profile the bacterial colonisation patterns of different male genital tract anatomical compartments and critically highlight their findings and their weaknesses. Moreover, we identified potential research axes that may be crucial for our understanding of the male genital tract microbiota and its impact on male infertility and pathophysiology.
人体被大量微生物定植,其对健康的影响正日益受到认识。人体生殖道存在多样化的微生物群,越来越多的男性生殖道微生物群研究表明,细菌在男性不育和前列腺癌等病理状况中发挥作用。然而,这一研究领域仍未得到充分研究。男性生殖道细菌定植的研究受到采样的侵袭性和微生物群数量低的严重影响。因此,大多数研究依赖于对精液微生物群的分析来描述男性生殖道(MGT)的定植情况,而人们认为 MGT 是无菌的。本叙述性综述的目的是介绍使用下一代测序(NGS)来分析男性生殖道不同解剖部位细菌定植模式的研究结果,并批判性地强调它们的发现及其局限性。此外,我们确定了可能对我们理解男性生殖道微生物群及其对男性不育和病理生理学影响至关重要的潜在研究方向。
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