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

描述（由申请人提供）：在美国，每年用于患有并发症的新生儿的保健费用接近260亿美元，在全世界范围内，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，但在过去几十年中，早产并没有显著减少。越来越清楚的是，在人体内定植的数十亿细菌在个人健康中发挥着重要作用。然而，在产前健康和健康婴儿的出生中，数百万细菌和其他微生物在人类女性泌尿生殖道中的作用仍然不清楚。在“组学”技术最近发展之前;即，基因组学、转录组学、蛋白质组学、代谢组学、相互作用组学等，不可能以任何深入或高效的方式研究这些微生物种群。这些生物中的许多从未被鉴定过，并且相当大的一部分尚未成功培养。在此，我们建议使用这些“组学”技术来解剖栖息和定植于孕妇女性泌尿生殖道的细菌种群，以评估这些生物体在维持这些妇女及其婴儿的健康或疾病原因中的作用。了解这些生物体在女性泌尿生殖道健康中的作用将导致更好，更有效的产前和产后护理，可能导致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.