Copyright: © 2026 by the authors. Licensee: Pirogov University.
This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license (CC BY).

ORIGINAL RESEARCH

Can autochthonous endometrial microbiota be detected by transcervical sampling?

About authors

1 Ural State Medical University, Yekaterinburg, Russia

2 Medical Center “Garmonia”, Yekaterinburg, Russia

Correspondence should be addressed: Danila L. Zornikov
Klyuchevskaya, 17, Yekaterinburg, 620109, Russia; moc.liamg@ldvokinroz

About paper

Acknowledgments: the authors thank V. N. Khayutin, General Director of the Harmony Medical Center (Yekaterinburg), for the opportunity to conduct the study at the center.

Author contribution: Zornikov DL — conceptualization, visualization, formal analysis, writing — manuscript preparation; Simarzina VM — laboratory investigations, interpretation of laboratory results, writing — review and editing; Islamidi DK — participant enrollment, formation of clinical groups, collection of biomaterial, anamnestic and clinical data, analysis and interpretation of clinical data, writing — review and editing; Belykh NS — participant enrollment, collection of biomaterial, anamnestic and clinical data; Kornilov DO — laboratory investigations, interpretation of laboratory results, writing — review and editing; Abakumova EI — participant enrollment, collection of anamnestic and clinical data; Khayutin LV — collection of anamnestic and clinical data, writing — review and editing; Plotko EE — project administration, writing — review and editing; Voroshilina ES — supervision, study design, data analysis and interpretation, writing — review and editing.

Compliance with ethical standards: the study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Ural State Medical University (Protocol No. 1 dated January 24, 2020; Protocol No. 4 dated May 26, 2023). Informed consent was obtained from all study participants.

Received: 2026-05-28 Accepted: 2026-06-14 Published online: 2026-07-05
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Transcervical endometrial sampling is widely used to study the uterine microbiota, but the risk of cervical contamination raises doubts about whether detected microorganisms genuinely originate from the endometrium. This study aimed to determine whether autochthonous endometrial microbiota can be detected in transcervically collected samples by quantitative PCR after accounting for cervical contamination. Paired cervical and endometrial samples were collected from 185 reproductive-age women using an Endobrush catheter for endometrial sampling. Microbiota composition was assessed by real-time PCR targeting 27 microbial groups. An endometrial signal was considered true if its quantity exceeded that in the paired cervical sample, adjusted for transfer thresholds of 30% (expected, based on prior in vitro data) and 100% (conservative). Before correction, microbial signals were detected in endometrial samples from 144 (77.8%) women. After correction, positive signals remained in 44.3% (30% threshold) and 37.3% (100% threshold) of women. Most Lactobacillus spp. positives fell into an uninterpretable gray zone (47.6% and 55.1% at the 30% and 100% thresholds, respectively). In contrast, opportunistic microorganisms largely remained true positives after correction. Autochthonous endometrial microbiota was detected in approximately 37% of women, typically comprising 1–3 predominantly non-lactobacillus taxa. Detection of opportunistic microorganisms in the endometrium therefore likely reflects their genuine presence, whereas Lactobacillus detection is, in most cases, indistinguishable from cervical contamination.

Keywords: endometrial microbiota, autochthonous microbiota, cervical contamination, transcervical sampling, quantitative PCR

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