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. 2025 Mar 31:15:1558469.
doi: 10.3389/fcimb.2025.1558469. eCollection 2025.

Partial normalization of microbiota dysbiosis in condyloma acuminatum patients following treatment

Kai Chen #  1   2   3 , Meng Li #  1   2 , Tian-Qi Fu #  1   2 , Yan-Yan Hu  1   2 , Lan Chen  1   4 , Qian Huang  1   2 , Li Xu  1   2 , Zhi-Liang Zeng  1   2 , Dong-Sheng Li  1   2
Affiliations

Partial normalization of microbiota dysbiosis in condyloma acuminatum patients following treatment

Kai Chen et al. Front Cell Infect Microbiol. .

Abstract

Introduction: Condyloma acuminatum (CA) is the most common sexually transmitted disease and the presence of microbiota dysbiosis has been observed to promote the progress of the disease. However, the explicit characteristics of microbiota dysbiosis in CA patients have not been well elucidated yet.

Methods: We recruited 40 CA patients who received QYXJ (an in-hospital prescription that has been used to treat CA for many years) treatment and 40 healthy controls (HC) in the current study. Before and after two weeks QYXJ administration, the skin microbiome of each patient was assessed using 16S rRNA gene sequencing.

Results: Here, we found increased relative abundances of Staphylococcus and Lactobacillus, whereas a decreased Escherichia in CA patients relative to healthy controls (HC). Moreover, we also observed significant alpha and beta diversity differences between the CA and HC groups, and QYXJ treatment effectivity attenuated these alterations of genus level and microbial diversity in patients with CA. Importantly, further microbial interaction and function analyses revealed the significantly enriched relative abundance of Caldivirga and Streptococcus in microbial community, decreased complexity of microbial interactions and downregulated metabolic pathways in CA patients, including membrane transport, lipid metabolism and carbohydrate metabolism. Remarkably, QYXJ administration partially restored these microbiota dysbiosis, which subsequently shifts microbiomes of patients with CA towards healthy-like microbiota.

Conclusion: This study further confirmed the changes of skin microbiome in CA pathogenesis and firstly revealed the protective effects of QYXJ in microbiota dysbiosis resolution, suggesting its potential role as a novel method for CA treatment.

Keywords: condyloma acuminatum (CA); dysbiosis resolution; microbial interaction and function; microbiota dysbiosis; skin microbiome.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Microbial community composition in different groups. (A) Relative abundance of skin microbiota at the kingdom level in the three groups. (B) Relative abundance of skin microbiota at the phylum level in the three groups. (C) Relative abundance of skin microbiota at the genus level in the three groups. HC, healthy control group; CA, CA patient group, before treatment; TM, CA patient group, after two weeks treatment.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Alpha and beta diversity in different groups. (A, B) Analysis of alpha diversity of skin microbiota in different groups by Observed analysis (A) and Shannon analysis (B). *, CA vs. HC; #, TM vs. CA, Kruskal-Wallis test. **p < 0.01, #p < 0.05, ###p < 0.001. (C, D) Principal coordinate analysis (PCoA) plots of beta diversity based on Bray-Curtis analysis (C) and Jaccard analysis (D) in different groups. HC, healthy control group; CA, CA patient group, before treatment; TM, CA patient group, after two weeks treatment. P-value was estimated by permutational multivariate analysis of variance (PERMANOVA).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Enrichment analysis of microbial operational taxonomic units (OTUs) and communities in different groups. (A) Venn diagram displaying the distribution of the common and unique OTUs in the three groups. (B) Heatmap plot showing the representatively different OTUs in each group. (C) Heatmap plot showing the most abundant microbial communities in each group. HC, healthy control group; CA, CA patient group, before treatment; TM, CA patient group, after two weeks treatment. Significant difference was estimated by analysis of variance (ANOVA, p < 0.05).
Figure 4
Figure 4
Correlation analysis reveals the microbial interactions in each group. Spearman’s rank correlation test, p < 0.05, |r| > 0.4. HC, healthy control group; CA, CA patient group, before treatment; TM, CA patient group, after two weeks treatment.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Functional analysis reveals obviously different metabolic pathways in different groups. (A, B) The significantly altered microbial functional pathways in CA vs. HC (A) and TM vs. CA (B), as revealed by the extended error bar method. Wilcoxon rank sum test. HC, healthy control group; CA, CA patient group, before treatment; TM, CA patient group, after two weeks treatment.
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