Fig. 2.

Heat map of the fractional abundance of the 20 most abundant OTUs in the vaginal communities of 40 women sampled longitudinally during pregnancy. Clustering on the abundance profiles of individual samples (n = 761) using the partitioning around medoids algorithm identified six CSTs. CSTs 1, 2, 3, and 5 were characterized by dominant Lactobacillus species that typically account for >90% of the community: L. crispatus, L. jensenii, L. iners, and L. gasseri, respectively. CST 4 was significantly more diverse. Pregnancy outcomes are indicated by the bar at the top: term delivery (gray), >37 gestational weeks; preterm (maroon), <36 wk; very preterm (pink), <32 wk; marginal delivery during the 37th gestational week (white).