Kundu, S.Dos Santos Correia, G.Lee, Y.S.Ng, S.Sykes, L.Chan, D.Lewis, H.Brown, R.G.Kindinger, L.Dell, A.Feizi, T.Haslam, S.M.Liu, Y.Marchesi, J.R.MacIntyre, D.A.Bennett, P.R.2025-08-072025-08-072024Microbial Genomics, 2024; 10(12):001323-1-001323-112057-58582057-5858https://hdl.handle.net/2440/146601Mutations in the FUT2 gene that result in a lack of expression of histo-blood group antigens on secreted glycoproteins may shape the vaginal microbiota with consequences for birth outcome. To test this, we analysed the relationship between secretor status, vaginal microbiota and gestational length in an ethnically diverse cohort of 302 pregnant women, including 82 who delivered preterm. Lactobacillus gasseri and L. jensenii were found to have distinct co-occurrence patterns with other microbial taxa in non-secretors. Moreover, non-secretors with Lactobacillus spp. depleted high diversity vaginal microbiota in early pregnancy had significantly shorter gestational length than Lactobacillus spp. dominated non-secretors (mean of 241.54 days (sd=47.14) versus 266.21 (23.61); P-value= 0.0251). Similar gestational length differences were observed between non-secretors with high vaginal diversity and secretors with Lactobacillus spp. dominance (mean of 262.52 days (SD=27.73); p-value= 0.0439) or depletion (mean of 266.05 days (SD=20.81); p-value= 0.0312). Our data highlight secretor status and blood-group antigen expression as being important mediators of vaginal microbiota–host interactions in the context of preterm birth risk.en© 2024 The Authors. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. This article was made open access via a Publish and Read agreement between the Microbiology Society and the corresponding author’s institutionblood-type antigens; Lactobacillus; preterm birth; secretor status and vaginal microbiomeVaginaHumansLactobacillusPremature BirthFucosyltransferasesPregnancyAdultInfant, NewbornFemaleMicrobiotaLactobacillus gasseriGalactoside 2-alpha-L-fucosyltransferaseJournal article10.1099/mgen.0.001323720236MacIntyre, D.A. [0000-0002-4186-5567]