The vagina microbiome : not something that you regularly hear about , but something that play a lively theatrical role in vaginal health and disease . Now , researchers have developed a new technology called the Vagina Chip that will help scientist develop new alterative tool .
If you possess a vagina , you may have encountered the uncomfortable condition experience asbacterial vaginosis(BV ) . This hap when the microbiome of the vagina is disrupted and is the mostcommonvaginal condition between the ages of 15 - 44 .
This disease increases the risk of sexually transmitted infections and the risk of pre - term birth in pregnancy . as luck would have it , at the moment , it can be treated with antibiotic – but reoccurrence can bump and direct to severe complications .
There are many bacterium that occupy the vagina , and not all of them are bad . In fact , Lactobacillusspecies reside in the Hammond organ and comprise 70 percentage of goodly human vaginal microbiomes . Any hoo-hah of the microbiome can cause disease .
Unfortunately , this area of research is very understudied . This is mainly due to the fact that no preclinical models have been able to repeat the vaginal epithelial microenvironment , as the human vaginal microbiome is a lot different than other vulgar fauna simulation . This lack of preclinical role model is essential for experimentation and therapy development .
Well … that is , until now .
“ A major stumbling block for that attempt was that there were no in force preclinical models that could be used to analyze which therapies can actually regale BV in human tissue . Our squad ’s undertaking was to create a human Vagina Chip to aid in the maturation and testing of new therapy for BV , ” pronounce carbon monoxide - author Aakanksha Gulati , in astatement .
Researchers at theWyssInstitute at Harvard University have developed and create anin vitromodel that features the functional vaginal epithelium : the Vagina Chip , a type of organ silicon chip .
The growing of theVagina Chiprequired the scientists to sow the top channel of a polymer chip with human vaginal epithelial cells , with human uterine fibroblast cells on the opposite of the permeable tissue layer . This organize a three-D - like bodily structure of the human vaginal paries . After five days , multiple layer of differentiated human vaginal cells developed .
There have been some successful subject field of this engineering science . For example , when a form of the sexual practice endocrine estrogen was introduced , the cells on the fleck transfer in answer , which indicated that it was sore to hormones .
The squad then went on to test unlike bacteria on the crisp . When a good bacterium likeLactobacillus crispatusis grown on the chips , the epithelial cells remain healthy and produce fewer proinflammatory atom , consistent with the current hypothesis that these bug facilitate human vagina stay salubrious .
Researchers also introduced harmful bacterium onto the chips ( such asGardnerella vaginalis ) that are associated with BV , which caused the epithelial cellular telephone to be damaged , caused the proinflammatory cytokine levels to increase , and the pH to increase . This case of reaction is often seen when there are pathological changes in the human vagina due to an unhealthy microbiome .
“ It was very striking that the different microbial metal money produce such diametrical effect on the human vaginal cells , and we were able to take note and measure those effects quite easily using our Vagina Chip , ” said co - generator Abidemi Junaid . “ The winner of these studies demonstrate that this model can be used to examine dissimilar combinations of microbes to help identify the undecomposed probiotic treatments for BV and other conditions . ”
More work involve to be conducted on this technology , but it is very promising and it could go on to clarify vaginal epithelium - microbiome fundamental interaction and also test new therapy .
This study was published in the journalMicrobiome .
