A Multi-'omic Analysis of the Vaginal Microbiome during Pregnancy

描述(申请人提供)：在美国，有并发症的新生儿每年的医疗保健费用接近260亿美元，而在世界范围内，早产是新生儿发病率和死亡率的主要原因。尽管存活率有所提高，但在过去的几十年里，早产儿的数量并没有显著下降。越来越清楚的是，寄生在人体内的数十亿种细菌在个人健康方面发挥着重要作用。然而，人类女性泌尿生殖道中数以百万计的细菌和其他微生物在产前健康和健康婴儿出生中的作用仍然不清楚。在“组学”技术，即基因组学、转录组学、蛋白质组学、代谢组学、互作组学等最近的发展之前，不可能以任何深入或高效的方式研究这些微生物种群。这些生物体中的许多从未被表征，相当大一部分还没有成功培养。在此，我们建议使用这些“基因组”技术来解剖居住和定植于孕妇女性泌尿生殖道的细菌种群，以评估这些微生物在这些妇女及其婴儿的健康维护或疾病病因中的作用(S)。了解这些微生物在女性泌尿生殖道健康中所起的作用将有助于更好、更有效地进行产前和产后护理，从而有可能降低早产和婴儿发病率和死亡率。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): In the U.S., the annual cost of health care for newborns with complications approaches $26 billion, and worldwide, preterm birth is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality among neonates. Despite improved survival rates, the past few decades have seen no significant decrease in preterm births. It is becoming more clear that the billions of bacteria that colonize the human body play important roles in the health of the individual. However, the role of the millions of bacteria and other microbes that colonize the human female urogenital tract in prenatal health and birth of a healthy baby remains obscure. Previous to the recent development of 'omics' technologies; i.e., genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, interactomics, etc., it was not possible to study these microbial populations in any in depth or highly efficient way. Many of these organisms have never been characterized and a fairly large fraction have not been successfully cultured. Herein, we propose to use these 'omic' technologies to dissect the bacterial populations that inhabit and colonize the female urogenital tract of pregnant women to assess the role(s) of these organisms in maintenance of health or in the cause of disease in these women and their babies. An understanding of the roles these organisms play in the health of the female urogenital tract will lead to better, more efficient prenatal and postnatal care, likely leading to diminished levels of preterm birth and infant morbidity and mortality.