The high incidence of
bacterial vaginosis recurrence is common
after treatment with an
antibiotic agent and suggests the need for new treatments to prevent this. We conducted a randomized trial to evaluate the ability of
maltose gel to treat
bacterial vaginosis. Eighteen female rhesus macaques were randomly assigned, in a 2:1 ratio, to receive
maltose gel or placebo gel by syringe to the fornix of the vagina for five consecutive days. We used
16S rRNA sequencing data from 70 swab samples of vaginal secretions in two groups in total on days 0, 3, and 5 after medication initiation and days 3 and 5 after medication withdrawal for the study of microbiome composition. We found that, in the placebo control group, there was no significant change in the composition and abundance of vaginal microbiota during the follow-up period. In the
maltose gel test group, the abundance of Lactobacillus in the vagina microbiota increased gradually with the prolongation of the treatment time on Days 3 and 5 (ANOVA p = 6.99e-5 < 0.01) but began to decrease after the withdrawal of
maltose gel, which was different from that of the control group. Correspondingly, the diversity and abundance of BV-related bacteria, Fusobacterium, Parvimonas, Mobiluncus, Campylobacter, Prevotella, and Sneathia, decreased on Day 0 to Day 5 of medication and increased after drug withdrawal in the
maltose gel test group. The study confirms that
maltose gel can facilitate the proliferation of Lactobacillus and promote the transition of the vaginal microbiota from BV-related bacteria dominant to Lactobacillus dominant in the rhesus macaque.