Male circumcision significantly reduces prevalence and load of genital anaerobic bacteria

Liu, Cindy M. and Hungate, Bruce A and Tobian, Aaron A. R. and Serwadda, David and Ravel, Jacques and Lester, Richard and Kigozi, Godfrey and Aziz, Maliha and Galiwango, Ronald M. and Nalugoda, Fred and Contente-Cuomo, Tania L. and Wawer, Maria J. and Keim, Paul and Gray, Ronald H. and Price, Lance B. (2013) Male circumcision significantly reduces prevalence and load of genital anaerobic bacteria. mBio, 4 (2). e00076-13. ISSN 2150-7511

Preview

Text Liu_C_Etal_Male_Circumcision_Reduces_HIV(1).pdf Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial Share Alike. Download (1MB) | Preview

Abstract

Male circumcision reduces female-to-male HIV transmission. Hypothesized mechanisms for this protective effect include decreased HIV target cell recruitment and activation due to changes in the penis microbiome. We compared the coronal sulcus microbiota of men from a group of uncircumcised controls (n = 77) and from a circumcised intervention group (n = 79) at enrollment and year 1 follow-up in a randomized circumcision trial in Rakai, Uganda. We characterized microbiota using16S rRNA gene-based quantitative PCR (qPCR) and pyrosequencing, log response ratio (LRR), Bayesian classification, nonmetric multidimensional scaling (nMDS), and permutational multivariate analysis of variance (PerMANOVA). At baseline, men in both study arms had comparable coronal sulcus microbiota; however, by year 1, circumcision decreased the total bacterial load and reduced microbiota biodiversity. Specifically, the prevalence and absolute abundance of 12 anaerobic bacterial taxa decreased significantly in the circumcised men. While aerobic bacterial taxa also increased postcircumcision, these gains were minor. The reduction in anaerobes may partly account for the effects of circumcision on reduced HIV acquisition. IMPORTANCE The bacterial changes identified in this study may play an important role in the HIV risk reduction conferred by male circumcision. Decreasing the load of specific anaerobes could reduce HIV target cell recruitment to the foreskin. Understanding the mechanisms that underlie the benefits of male circumcision could help to identify new intervention strategies for decreasing HIV transmission, applicable to populations with high HIV prevalence where male circumcision is culturally less acceptable.

Item Type:	Article
ID number or DOI:	10.1128/mBio.00076-13
Keywords:	dendritic cells; Gram-Positive Bacteria; hiv-negative men; human-papillomavirus; infection; langerhans cells; neisseria-gonorrhoeae; Prevention; randomized-trial; simplex-virus type-2
Subjects:	Q Science > QR Microbiology
NAU Depositing Author Academic Status:	Faculty/Staff
Department/Unit:	College of Engineering, Forestry, and Natural Science > Biological Sciences Research Centers > Center for Microbial Genetics and Genomics
Date Deposited:	16 Oct 2015 18:30
URI:	http://openknowledge.nau.edu/id/eprint/1052

Actions (login required)

IR Staff Record View

Downloads