{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,2]],"date-time":"2026-10-02T04:56:05Z","timestamp":1790916965014,"version":"4.1.0"},"reference-count":51,"publisher":"Frontiers Media SA","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,2]],"date-time":"2026-10-02T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1790899200000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["frontiersin.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Front. Cell. Infect. Microbiol."],"abstract":"<jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Objective<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>To investigate the changes in vaginal microbiota in postmenopausal women from Xinjiang, China, with high-risk human papillomavirus (HPV) infection, cervical squamous intraepithelial lesion, and cervical cancer (CC).<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Methods<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>This study enrolled healthy postmenopausal women (HC group, n=25), postmenopausal women with high-risk HPV infection (HPV group, n=25), low-grade squamous intraepithelial lesion (LSIL group, n=25), high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesion (HSIL group, n=25), and cervical cancer (CC group, n=25). DNA was extracted from vaginal secretions, and full-length 16S rRNA gene sequencing was performed on the Nanopore platform. The EasyAmplicon 2 pipeline was used for sequence processing and taxonomic annotation, PICRUSt2 was used for functional prediction, and R software was used for vaginal microbiota diversity and statistical analyses.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Results<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>\n                      Among five groups of postmenopausal women, Shannon and Simpson alpha diversity indices were comparable, whereas Chao1\/ACE richness differed significantly (\n                      <jats:italic>p &amp;lt;<\/jats:italic>\n                      0.05). PERMANOVA showed no ASV-level beta diversity separation, with significant phylum-level divergence (R\n                      <jats:sup>2<\/jats:sup>\n                      \u00a0=\u00a00.105,\n                      <jats:italic>p<\/jats:italic>\n                      \u00a0=\u00a00.001).\n                      <jats:italic>Lactobacillus iners<\/jats:italic>\n                      dominated all samples but decreased in CC, alongside elevated opportunistic pathogens. LEfSe screened group-specific taxa:\n                      <jats:italic>L. johnsonii<\/jats:italic>\n                      (HC),\n                      <jats:italic>Dialister pneumosintes<\/jats:italic>\n                      (LSIL),\n                      <jats:italic>Candidatus Saccharibacteria<\/jats:italic>\n                      (HSIL), and\n                      <jats:italic>Streptococcus<\/jats:italic>\n                      spp.\/\n                      <jats:italic>Bacteroides fragilis<\/jats:italic>\n                      (CC). HC vs CC contained the most DABs (35), and LSIL vs HSIL the fewest (13). Co-occurrence network complexity peaked in LSIL\/HSIL (41 correlated pairs) and declined in CC (28 pairs). Ninety-two differential KEGG pathways were identified, with 60 enriched in LSIL.\n                      <jats:italic>L. iners<\/jats:italic>\n                      displayed dual correlations with diverse metabolic pathways, indicating comprehensive remodeling of vaginal microbiota structure, interactions and functions across progressive cervical lesions.\n                    <\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Conclusion<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>Vaginal microbiota undergoes progressive dysbiosis during the progression from high-risk HPV infection to CC in postmenopausal women. Distinct microbial alterations are observed at each disease stage, with substantial functional remodeling occurring at the LSIL stage. These findings provide a reference for early intervention and research on microbial biomarkers.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>","DOI":"10.3389\/fcimb.2026.1911664","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,2]],"date-time":"2026-10-02T04:41:24Z","timestamp":1790916084000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Vaginal microbiota and functional prediction along the progression of cervical lesions in postmenopausal women"],"prefix":"10.3389","volume":"16","author":[{"given":"Yanjia","family":"Liu","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Gynecology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Xinjiang Medical University","place":["Urumqi, China"]},{"name":"State Key Laboratory of Pathogenesis, Prevention and Treatment of High Incidence Diseases in Central Asia","place":["Urumqi, China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Cailing","family":"Ma","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Gynecology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Xinjiang Medical University","place":["Urumqi, China"]},{"name":"State Key Laboratory of Pathogenesis, Prevention and Treatment of High Incidence Diseases in Central Asia","place":["Urumqi, China"]},{"name":"Xinjiang Key Laboratory of Medical Animal Model Research","place":["Urumqi, China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Lijuan","family":"Quan","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"The Health Management Center of The First Affiliated Hospital of Xinjiang Medical University","place":["Urumqi, China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Yan","family":"Li","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Gynecology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Xinjiang Medical University","place":["Urumqi, China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Yanling","family":"Zhou","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Gynecology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Xinjiang Medical University","place":["Urumqi, China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Renqi","family":"Zhang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Gynecology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Xinjiang Medical University","place":["Urumqi, China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Lipeng","family":"Zhang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Gynecology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Xinjiang Medical University","place":["Urumqi, China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Yinawati","family":"Tuerxun","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Gynecology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Xinjiang Medical University","place":["Urumqi, China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1965","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,2]]},"reference":[{"key":"B1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pone.0153274","article-title":"Cervical microbiome and cytokine profile at various stages of cervical cancer: a pilot study","volume":"11","author":"Audirac-Chalifour","year":"2016","journal-title":"PloS One"},{"key":"B2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"S14","DOI":"10.1093\/infdis\/jiw159","article-title":"Current treatment of bacterial vaginosis limitations and need for innovation","volume":"214","author":"Bradshaw","year":"2016","journal-title":"J. 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