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

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。尽管改善了 尽管早产率下降，但过去几十年早产率没有显著下降。它正在成为 更清楚的是，数十亿的细菌，殖民人体发挥重要作用，在健康的 单独的.然而，数百万细菌和其他微生物在人类女性中的作用 泌尿生殖道在产前健康和健康婴儿出生中的作用仍然不清楚。前不久， 发展“组学”技术;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，不可能深入或高效地研究这些微生物种群， 路上了这些生物中有许多从未被鉴定过，相当大的一部分从未被鉴定过。 成功培养。在此，我们建议使用这些“组学”技术来解剖细菌 居住和定植于孕妇女性泌尿生殖道的人群，以评估 这些微生物在维持这些妇女及其婴儿的健康或致病方面起着重要作用。一个 了解这些生物体在女性泌尿生殖道健康中的作用， 更好、更有效的产前和产后护理，可能导致早产率下降， 婴儿发病率和死亡率。

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.