Abstract:
The human vaginal microbiota is important for a highly balanced microenvironment crucial to maintaining an infection free state. However, if this balance is disturbed, vaginal infections can occur. Two very common vaginal infections are Trichomoniasis, with 160 million reported cases annually, and Bacterial vaginosis, which affect roughly 30 % of women of child bearing age. While Bacterial vaginosis is a polymicrobial infection, Trichomoniasis is caused by the human parasite Trichomonas vaginalis. Both diseases see, to occur when beneficial bacteria such as lactobacilli are seen to decrease in numbers and recent studies by Ravel et al., (2011), and Brotman et al., (2012), have raised the belief that they occur simultaneously pointing towards a synergistic relationship of the two diseases. To investigate if such a relationship exists, the following sets of experiments were carried out: the first involved measuring the growth of T. vaginalis and P. bivia and testing through conditioned-media, if they have an effect on each other’s growth. The second was to measure the adhesion and migration of T. vaginalis to a mucin layer and then determine if P. bivia influences these abilities. The results showed that though T. vaginalis decreased P. bivia growth, P. bivia had no effect on T. vaginalis’ growth or adhesion and migration of T. vaginalis through a mucin layer. Based on these results we can conclude that at least P. bivia alone has no tremendous effect on the pathogenicity of T. vaginalis.
