In our infection experiments with single species of bacteria, G. vaginalis strongly induced the expression of IL-1β, IL-8, or CCL20 in the vaginal and endocervical epithelium, while P. timonensis, P. bivia, and L. crispatus did not significantly induce proinflammatory cytokine response (Fig. 2C through E), which was in line with previous reports that investigated single species (27, 58). The gene discussed is CXCL8; the disease is infection.