FIG 6.

Coculture of Prevotella bivia NCTC 11156 and a panel of Gardnerella vaginalis isolates. (A) A heatmap shows the relationship between metabolite concentration fold changes, relative to fresh BHI plus 5% horse serum, detected by ¹H NMR of spent cultures. (B) The correlation between CFU number for Pr. bivia and each G. vaginalis partner is shown for five cocultures; Spearman and Pearson r values are provided in Table 1. (C) Spent culture pH for mono- and cocultures as well as fresh BHI. (D) G. vaginalis supplies Pr. bivia with asparagine. (E) Acetate levels increase when bifid shunt G. vaginalis strains (10287 and 10915) are cocultured with Pr. bivia. (F) Symbiosis between Pr. bivia and MAF G. vaginalis strains produces aspartate. Comparisons are shown between each coculture and the corresponding monococultures (C to E) and also fresh BHI (F) as determined by one-way ANOVA with Tukey correction for multiple comparisons. Only P values <0.05 are shown. *, P < 0.05; **, P < 0.01; ***, P < 0.001; ****, P < 0.0001. Comparisons for further metabolites are shown in Fig. S6.