Fig 1.
Participant flowchart detailing number of women screened for eligibility, resulting number of couples recruited to study and their progression through the study period. LTFU, lost to follow up.
Table 1.
Demographic and behavioural characteristics of couples at baseline.
Table 2.
Clinical and laboratory characteristics of females.
Table 3.
Treatment adherence and side effects.
Table 4.
Behavioural characteristics of couples during study period.
Fig 2.
Specimen flowchart detailing number of vaginal and penile skin specimens available for microbiota analysis at baseline, day 8 and day 28. Seventeen women provided vaginal specimens for day 0 and 8 paired comparisons, and 16 provided vaginal specimens for day 0 and 28 paired comparisons. Sixteen males provided cutaneous penile specimens for day 0 and 8 paired comparisons and 15 males provided cutaneous penile specimens for day 0 and 28 paired comparisons. The number of couples providing specimens at each time-point is also shown. abaseline specimen was not available for one female; btwo d8 penile skin specimens failed to meet the sequence depth threshold and were substituted with day 14 specimens.
Fig 3.
Heatmap of bacterial abundance from vaginal specimens collected at baseline, day 8 and day 28.
Each vertical line represents the bacterial composition of one vaginal specimen. Only the 30 most abundant taxa found in vaginal specimens are included in the heatmap. Study day is displayed above the heatmap in red (day 0), blue (day 8) and yellow (day 28). Specimens collected from females who experienced BV recurrence during the study are indicated by * and # below the dendrogram.
Fig 4.
Heatmap of bacterial abundance from penile skin specimens collected at baseline, day 8 and day 28.
Each vertical line represents the bacterial composition of one penile specimen. Only the 30 most abundant taxa found in penile specimens are included in the heatmap. Study day is displayed above the heatmap in red (day 0), blue (day 8) and yellow (day 28); circumcision status is displayed in black (uncircumcised) and grey (circumcised). Specimens collected from male partners of women who experienced BV recurrence during the study are indicated by * and # below the dendrogram.
Fig 5.
Immediate and sustained effect of dual partner treatment on the composition and diversity of the genital microbiota of females and males.
Panel A. Effect of treatment on microbiota composition. Bray-Curtis scores were calculated using the between paired specimens from each participant to investigate the change in microbiota composition from baseline to day 8 (D0 vs D8) and baseline to day 28 (D0 vs D28). A lower Bray-Curtis score indicates greater change in microbiota composition. Panel B. Effect of treatment on microbiota diversity. Alpha diversity is expressed as effective number of taxa, which is defined as the exponent of the Shannon Diversity Index. Alpha diversity values are presented for specimens collected at baseline (D0), day 8 (D8) and day 28 (D28). Changes in alpha diversity between baseline and day 8 and baseline and day 28 were assessed by the Wilcoxon signed-rank test. Box and whisker plots show median, Interquartile range (IQR), and the most extreme values within 1.5 IQR of the nearest quartile (dots indicate outliers).
Table 5.
Prevalence and changes in prevalence of the 30 most abundant taxa in vaginal specimens over the study period.
Table 6.
Prevalence and changes in prevalence of the 30 most abundant taxa in penile skin specimens over the study period.