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. 2018 May 11;6(1):87.
doi: 10.1186/s40168-018-0475-7.

Amniotic fluid from healthy term pregnancies does not harbor a detectable microbial community

Efrem S Lim  1   2 , Cynthia Rodriguez  3 , Lori R Holtz  4
Affiliations

Amniotic fluid from healthy term pregnancies does not harbor a detectable microbial community

Efrem S Lim et al. Microbiome. .

Erratum in

Abstract

Recent studies have conflicting data regarding the presence of intra-amniotic microbiota. Viral communities are increasingly recognized as important although overlooked components of the human microbiota. It is unknown if the developing fetus is exposed to a community of viruses (virome). Given the debate over the existence of an intra-amniotic microbial community and the importance of understanding how the infant gut is populated, we characterized the virome and bacterial microbiota of amniotic fluid from 24 uncomplicated term pregnancies using next-generation sequencing methods. Contrary to expectations, the bacterial microbiota of amniotic fluid was indistinguishable from contamination controls. Viral reads were sparse in the amniotic fluid, and we found no evidence of a core viral community across samples.

Keywords: Amniotic fluid; Bacteria; Microbial invasion of the amniotic cavity; Microbiome; Sterile body fluid; Virome; Virus.

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Conflict of interest statement

Ethics approval and consent to participate

The institutional review board at Washington University School of Medicine approved the study. Subjects provided informed consent to be included in the Women and Infants Health Specimen Consortium biobank at Washington University.

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Bacterial 16S rRNA gene quantitative PCR. 16S rRNA gene copies per reaction were quantified in the amniotic fluid samples, water (reagent negative control), buffer (extraction negative control), and pediatric stool samples. Statistical significance was assessed by Mann-Whitney test; **P ≤ 0.01, ***P ≤ 0.0001. ns, non-significant
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
The bacterial microbiota of amniotic fluid is indistinguishable from controls. a Richness (number of bacterial OTUs) of each sample type by sequencing depth. b PCoA of unweighted UniFrac distances. c Bray-Curtis dissimilarity analysis compared within sample type and between sample type and buffer control. Statistical significance was assessed by Mann-Whitney test. d Relative abundance of bacterial OTUs unique to amniotic fluid and not present in negative controls
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Viruses are rarely detected in amniotic fluid. a Sequencing reads (virus and other) by sample type. b Viral richness by sample type. c Heatmap of reads assigned to virus species. d Number of reads assigned to viral species per sample which were unique to amniotic fluid and not present in negative controls. e Amount of adenovirus plasmid detected in spiked amniotic fluid sample and amount in spiked material (dotted line)
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Comment in

References

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