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Microbiome, Vagina

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Encyclopedia of Metagenomics

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The human vagina is home to a milieu of microbes that are thought to play a critical role in maintaining health and protecting their host from infectious disease. These microbes, collectively known as the vaginal microbiome, exist in a finely balanced mutualistic association with their hosts and play a central role in the dynamic interplay between health and risk to disease. The exact mechanisms mediating these interactions are not currently well understood. Recent studies have begun to shed light on how vaginal microbial communities vary among and within individuals at various stages of a woman’s lifespan. However, relatively little is known about the function of these communities or how their constituent members interact with each other and the host to form a dynamic ecosystem that responds to environmental disturbances. Major efforts are currently underway to better understand the role of these communities in health and disease.

Common Wisdom and General Characteristics of the...

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Gynaecology & Obstetrics, Ruijin Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai Jiaotong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China

    Jian Shen

  2. Institute for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID, USA

    Jian Shen, Roxana Hickey & Larry J. Forney

  3. Department of Biological Sciences, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID, USA

    Roxana Hickey & Larry J. Forney

Authors
  1. Jian Shen
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  2. Roxana Hickey
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  3. Larry J. Forney
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jian Shen .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI), Rockville, Maryland, USA

    Karen E. Nelson

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© 2013 Springer Science+Business Media New York

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Shen, J., Hickey, R., Forney, L.J. (2013). Microbiome, Vagina. In: Nelson, K. (eds) Encyclopedia of Metagenomics. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6418-1_70-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6418-1_70-1

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  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-6418-1

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