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For years, scientists and physicians thought that the womb was sterile, but that changed as both sequencing- and culture-based methods indicated that the placenta harbors a relatively small microbial community. But in a study published today (July 31) in Nature, researchers attribute the scant bacterial presence in the placenta to laboratory contamination and transfer during delivery. They conclude that—with the exception of group B Streptococcus, a known pathogen—there is no evidence for bacteria in the placenta, an idea questioned by some of the researchers not involved in the work.
The authors “used a very large sample size, [performed] very thorough analysis, and it was very convincing,” says Frederic Bushman, a microbiologist at the University of Pennsylvania. He did not participate in the current study, but his group published a paper in 2016 in which the microbial signatures from placental samples were not distinguishable from those generated by ...
