Santarelli Giulia, Sanguinetti Maurizio, Delogu Giovanni, De Maio Flavio
Dipartimento di Scienze Biotecnologiche di Base, Cliniche Intensivologiche e Perioperatorie-Sezione di Microbiologia, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Rome, 00168, Italy.
Dipartimento Scienze di Laboratorio ed Ematologiche, Fondazione Policlinico Universitario "A. Gemelli", IRCCS, Rome, 00168, Italy.
Sci Rep. 2025 Jul 1;15(1):20798. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-08321-7.
Lactobacillus crispatus, a key member of the vaginal microbiota, exhibits strain-specific diversity with important implications for host-microbe interactions and probiotic potential. This study investigates the genomic relationships and bacteriocin diversity across 95 L. crispatus strains to elucidate the mechanisms underlying strain-specific adaptation and microbial competitiveness. Using publicly available data from NCBI, we applied BAGEL4 and core genome multilocus sequence typing (cgMLST) approaches to identify and characterize bacteriocin genes, revealing a high level of conservation of major bacteriocins among strains. Analysis of nucleotide polymorphisms within bacteriocin-encoding sequences showed that these genes are generally conserved, likely due to strong purifying selection. These findings suggest that bacteriocins in L. crispatus are functionally conserved, underscoring their potential role in maintaining vaginal health through microbial competition and pathogen exclusion.
卷曲乳杆菌是阴道微生物群的关键成员，表现出菌株特异性多样性，对宿主-微生物相互作用和益生菌潜力具有重要意义。本研究调查了95株卷曲乳杆菌菌株之间的基因组关系和细菌素多样性，以阐明菌株特异性适应和微生物竞争力的潜在机制。利用来自NCBI的公开数据，我们应用BAGEL4和核心基因组多位点序列分型（cgMLST）方法来鉴定和表征细菌素基因，结果显示主要细菌素在菌株之间具有高度保守性。对细菌素编码序列内的核苷酸多态性分析表明，这些基因通常是保守的，这可能是由于强大的纯化选择所致。这些发现表明，卷曲乳杆菌中的细菌素在功能上是保守的，突出了它们通过微生物竞争和病原体排除在维持阴道健康方面的潜在作用。
