The pregnancy microbiome and preterm birth
- PDF / 385,731 Bytes
- 13 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 78 Downloads / 202 Views
REVIEW
The pregnancy microbiome and preterm birth Erna Bayar 1 & Phillip R. Bennett 1,2 & Denise Chan 1 & Lynne Sykes 1,2 & David A. MacIntyre 1,2 Received: 10 July 2020 / Accepted: 30 July 2020 # The Author(s) 2020
Abstract Preterm birth is a global health concern and continues to contribute to substantial neonatal morbidity and mortality despite advances in obstetric and neonatal care. The underlying aetiology is multi-factorial and remains incompletely understood. In this review, the complex interplay between the vaginal microbiome in pregnancy and its association with preterm birth is discussed in depth. Advances in the study of bacteriology and an improved understanding of the human microbiome have seen an improved awareness of the vaginal microbiota in both health and in disease. Keywords Preterm birth . Pregnancy . Vaginal microbiome . Lactobacillus
Introduction Preterm birth (PTB) is a multi-aetiological disease state that causes almost 1 million deaths each year making it the primary cause of mortality in children under 5 years of age worldwide [1]. Infection is thought to contribute to at least one third of these cases [2, 3]. Whilst systemic maternal infection and colonisation of the lower reproductive tract by known pathogens such as Trichomonas vaginalis and Chlamydia trachomatis have long been associated with increased risk of PTB, recent applications of molecular-based profiling methods have provided new insights into the role that microbe-host interactions in pregnancy play in shaping PTB risk [4, 5]. In this review, we examine the current evidence linking maternal microbiota composition and host response to high-risk PTB phenotypes.
This article is a contribution to the special issue on Preterm birth: Pathogenesis and clinical consequences revisited - Guest Editors: Anke Diemert and Petra Arck * Phillip R. Bennett [email protected] 1
Imperial College Parturition Research Group, Institute for Reproductive and Developmental Biology, Imperial College London, Du Cane Road, London W12 0HS, UK
2
March of Dimes European Preterm Birth Research Centre, Imperial College London, London, UK
Culture- and molecular-based profiling of microbial communities Bacteriology in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries was largely limited to the investigation of microorganisms that were easily amenable to isolation and culture outside of the human body. However, advances in microscopy quickly led to the realisation that human body niches were colonised by many different microbial morphotypes of a complexity that culture-based methods alone failed to capture. In the twentyfirst century, the application of culture-free, molecular-based approaches such as high-throughput DNA sequencing techniques has provided a step change in our ability to rapidly and comprehensively characterise polymicrobial communities and has led to a greater appreciation of the vast numbers of bacteria, viruses, fungi and archaea that inhabit the human body [6]. The sum total of microorganisms present in a defined community is refer
Data Loading...
