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Updated: May 7, 2026

Modeling Healthy and Dysbiotic Vaginal Microenvironments in a Human Vagina-on-a-Chip
Published on: February 16, 2024
Vaginal microbiota and viral sexually transmitted diseases
C Nardis1, L Mosca, P Mastromarino
1Departments of Public Health and Infectious Diseases, Section of Microbiology, Sapienza University, Rome, Italy.
Abstract:
Healthy vaginal microbiota is an important biological barrier to pathogenic microorganisms. When this predominantly Lactobacillus community is disrupted, decreased in abundance and replaced by different anaerobes, bacterial vaginosis (BV) may occur. BV is associated with prevalence and incidence of several sexually transmitted infections. This review provides background on BV, discusses the epidemiologic data to support a role of altered vaginal microbiota for acquisition of sexually transmitted diseases and analyzes mechanisms by which lactobacilli could counteract sexually transmitted viral infections.
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