Extended Data Fig. 4: Vaginal concentrations of the Cys-containing peptides reduced glutathione (GSH) and cysteinylglycine (Cys-Gly) in cervicovaginal fluid are higher in women without BV and correlate with Lactobacillus dominance of the microbiota.
a,b Relative concentrations of (a) GSH and (b) Cys-Gly by BV status in CVL fluid from the 53 women in (Fig. 3a). c,d Relative concentrations of (c) GSH and (d) Cys-Gly by cervicotype in CVL fluid from the 142 women depicted in (Fig. 3b,c). In (a-d) the red dotted line represents the metabolite limit of detection (L.D.). For samples in which an analyte was below the L.D., concentrations were imputed at 0.5 x L.D. Log-transformed concentrations were not normally distributed due to the imputed values, so between-group differences were determined via Kruskal-Wallis test with post-hoc Dunn’s test, adjusting for multiple comparisons using the Bonferroni method. All significant pairwise differences are displayed. a No BV-BV: P = 5.7 ×10−7; No BV-Intermediate: P = 0.0037. b No BV-BV: P = 0,0032. c CT1-CT4: P = 7.7 ×10−5; CT2-CT3: P = 0.0292; CT2-CT4: P = 2.9 ×10−11. d CT1-CT4: P = 0.0191; CT2-CT4: P = 0.00014. Box center lines, edges, and whiskers signify the median, IQR, minima and maxima respectively. e,f Forest plots depicting Spearman correlation coefficients (ρ) between concentrations of GSH and Cys-Gly and relative abundances of each bacterial genus (e) or species (f) detected at >50% prevalence in the cohort (n = 142). P-values and confidence intervals in e,f were adjusted for multiple comparisons using the Bonferroni method at significance level 0.05/n (full statistical results in Supplementary Tables 14 & 15). Significance is depicted for adjusted p-values as * P ≤ 0.05, ** P ≤ 0.01, *** P ≤ 0.001, **** P ≤ 0.0001.
