{"doi":"10.1093/infdis/jiae026","title":"<i>Gardnerella</i> Species and Their Association With Bacterial Vaginosis","abstract":"BACKGROUND: Bacterial vaginosis (BV) is a condition marked by high vaginal bacterial diversity. Gardnerella vaginalis has been implicated in BV but is also detected in healthy women. The Gardnerella genus has been expanded to encompass 6 validly named species and several genomospecies. We hypothesized that particular Gardnerella species may be more associated with BV. METHODS: Quantitative polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assays were developed targeting the cpn60 gene of species groups including G. vaginalis, G. piotii/pickettii, G. swidsinskii/greenwoodii, and G. leopoldii. These assays were applied to vaginal swabs from individuals with (n = 101) and without BV (n = 150) attending a sexual health clinic in Seattle, Washington. Weekly swabs were collected from 42 participants for up to 12 weeks. RESULTS: Concentrations and prevalence of each Gardnerella species group were significantly higher in participants with BV; 91.1% of BV-positive participants had 3 or more Gardnerella species groups detected compared to 32.0% of BV-negative participants (P < .0001). BV-negative participants with 3 or more species groups detected were more likely to develop BV within 100 days versus those with fewer (60.5% vs 3.7%, P < .0001). CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that BV reflects a state of high Gardnerella species diversity. No Gardnerella species group was a specific marker for BV.","journal":"The Journal of Infectious Diseases","year":2024,"id":419849,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":37,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9677,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2024-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1081373,"name":"Susan Strenk","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":282873,"name":"Sujatha Srinivasan","orcid":"0000-0002-7267-3859","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":383112,"name":"Tina L. Fiedler","orcid":"0000-0002-5661-1199","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":283816,"name":"Sean Proll","orcid":null,"position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":282875,"name":"David N. Fredricks","orcid":"0000-0003-2735-6800","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":316701,"name":"Matthew M Munch","orcid":"0009-0002-5815-8794","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":48,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T01:57:19.937291Z","pmid":"38268121","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}