Year: 2015
Type: preprint
Abstract: The human microbiome, the collective genome of the microbial community that is on and within us, has recently been mapped.The initial characterization of healthy subjects has provided investigators with a reference population for interrogating the microbiome in metabolic, intestinal, and reproductive health and disease states.Although it is known that bacteria can colonize the vagina, recent metagenomic studies have shown that the vaginal microbiome varies among reproductive age women.Similarly, the richness and diversity of intestinal microbiota also naturally fluctuate among gravidae in both human and nonhuman primates, as well as mice.Moreover, recent evidence suggests that microbiome niches in pregnancy are not limited to maternal body sites, as the placenta appears to harbor a low biomass microbiome that is presumptively established in early pregnancy and varies in association with a remote history of maternal antenatal infection as well as preterm birth.In this article, we will provide a brief overview on metagenomics science as a means to investigate the microbiome, observations pertaining to both variation and the presumptive potential role of a varied microbiome during pregnancy, and how future studies of the microbiome in pregnancy may lend to a better understanding of human biology, reproductive health, and parturition.C ompleted in 2012, the Human Microbiome Project (HMP) characterized the microbiome composition of multiple body sites in healthy individuals of different ethnicities lo-cated in two separate cities (St.Louis, Missouri and Houston, Texas) in the United States.This multicenter effort showed that bacterial diversity, niche specificity, and microbial gene car-
Authors: A. L. Prince, D. M. Chu, M. D. Seferovic, K. M. Antony, J. Ma, K. M. Aagaard
Institution: Baylor College of Medicine
Language: English
Topic: Gut microbiota and health
Subfield: Molecular Biology
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
Awards: Medical Scientist Training Program, A Multi'omics Approach towards Deciphering the Influence of the Microbiome on Pre, Training Program in Translational Biology and Molecular Medicine, Characterization of the Fetal Primate Epigenome and Metabolome Under In Utero, G8717707462, Conserved Fetal Epigenomic and Metagenomic Signatures in a Primate Model of Maternal Obesity
OpenAlex ID: W2106574527