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

在美国，患有并发症的新生儿每年的医疗费用接近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。尽管情况有所改善 在过去的几十年里，早产儿的存活率并没有显著下降。它正在成为 更清楚的是，定居在人体内的数十亿种细菌对人类的健康起着重要作用 个人的。然而，数以百万计的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不清楚。在最近的之前 发展“组学”技术，即基因组学、转录组学、蛋白质组学、代谢组学、 等，不可能对这些微生物种群进行深入或高效的研究 道路。这些生物体中的许多从未被描述过，相当大一部分还没有被描述出来 培养成功。在这里，我们建议使用这些‘基因组’技术来解剖细菌 对居住和定植于女性生殖道的孕妇的作用进行评估(S) 在这些妇女及其婴儿中，这些微生物在维持健康或引起疾病方面起到了重要作用。一个 了解这些微生物在女性泌尿生殖道健康中所起的作用将导致 更好、更有效的产前和产后护理，可能导致早产和 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.