Abstract
Vesicoureteral reflux (VUR) is a risk factor for urinary tract infection (UTI). However, data describing the urobiome in children with VUR are limited. Here, we characterized the urobiome in children with and without VUR to better understand its potential role in VUR pathogenesis. Catheterized urine samples were obtained from children who presented for voiding cystourethrogram (VCUG) between 12/1/2020 and 10/3/2023. Children were excluded if they had any surgical procedures of the genitourinary tract in the 30 days prior to VCUG or were on treatment antibiotics at the time of VCUG. 16S rRNA gene sequencing and taxonomical classification identified the urobiome. Statistical models using distance, abundance and distribution-based approaches were used to associate the taxonomic profiles with clinical variables. In children with VUR, there is a positive association between history of febrile UTI and increasing abundance of Anaerococcus and decreasing abundance of Streptococcus, Ezakiella, and Corynebacterium. When examined together with age, sex, antibiotic prophylaxis, and highest grade of VUR, addition of the urobiome improved prediction of history of febrile UTI. Additionally, the urobiome is responsive to VUR grade, but does not predict VUR, and beta-diversity varies with higher grade VUR.
Similar content being viewed by others
Funding
CF was funded by 1K23DK129783 and in part by G. Nicholas III and Dorothy B. Beckwith.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
Additional information
Publisher’s note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Supplementary Information
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
Rights and permissions
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.
About this article
Cite this article
Barrett, T.C., Li, K., Fitch, A. et al. Urobiome composition varies with vesicoureteral reflux grade and history of febrile urinary tract infection. Sci Rep (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-53345-2
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-53345-2
