Species prevalence and antibiotic susceptibility of Lactobacillus spp. isolated from vagina of Korean women

초록

Indigenous vaginal Lactobacillus spp. play important roles in maintaining vaginal health by producing antimicrobial substances or bacteriocins to inhibit undesirable pathogens. One hundred five lactobacilli strains were isolated from the vaginal samples of 205 Korean women. To determine their patterns of antimicrobial susceptibility, we performed the MIC test using 14 antibiotics. All isolates were resistant to metronidazole, kanamycin, streptomycin, ofloxacin, and gentamycin (MICs, ≥200 ㎍/㎖) whereas they were susceptible to penicillin, clindamycin, and erythromycin (MICs, ≤1.56 ㎍/㎖). We also examined the species prevalence of the 105 isolates using PCR-RFLP analysis of their 16S rRNA gene. Comparison of their RFLP patterns with those of reference species of Lactobacillus revealed that the vaginal lactobacilli consisted with wide variety of Lactobacillus species (L. acidophilus and L. crispatus, 51 %; L. gasseri, 14 %; L. fermentum, 10 %; L. jensenii, 9 %; L. plantarum, 9 %; L. reuti, 4 %; L. casei and L. rhamnosus, 3 %). Consequently, it was found that L. acidophilus and L. crispatus were the most prevalent species among the normal vaginal flora of Korean women as they occupied 51% of total isolated Lactobacillus spp.