scholarly journals Alterations in the Vaginal Microbiome by Maternal Stress Are Associated With Metabolic Reprogramming of the Offspring Gut and Brain

Endocrinology ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 156 (9) ◽  
pp. 3265-3276 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eldin Jašarević ◽  
Christopher L. Howerton ◽  
Christopher D. Howard ◽  
Tracy L. Bale

The neonate is exposed to the maternal vaginal microbiota during parturition, providing the primary source for normal gut colonization, host immune maturation, and metabolism. These early interactions between the host and microbiota occur during a critical window of neurodevelopment, suggesting early life as an important period of cross talk between the developing gut and brain. Because perturbations in the prenatal environment such as maternal stress increase neurodevelopmental disease risk, disruptions to the vaginal ecosystem could be a contributing factor in significant and long-term consequences for the offspring. Therefore, to examine the hypothesis that changes in the vaginal microbiome are associated with effects on the offspring gut microbiota and on the developing brain, we used genomic, proteomic and metabolomic technologies to examine outcomes in our mouse model of early prenatal stress. Multivariate modeling identified broad proteomic changes to the maternal vaginal environment that influence offspring microbiota composition and metabolic processes essential for normal neurodevelopment. Maternal stress altered proteins related to vaginal immunity and abundance of Lactobacillus, the prominent taxa in the maternal vagina. Loss of maternal vaginal Lactobacillus resulted in decreased transmission of this bacterium to offspring. Further, altered microbiota composition in the neonate gut corresponded with changes in metabolite profiles involved in energy balance, and with region- and sex-specific disruptions of amino acid profiles in the developing brain. Taken together, these results identify the vaginal microbiota as a novel factor by which maternal stress may contribute to reprogramming of the developing brain that may predispose individuals to neurodevelopmental disorders.

eLife ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Steen Mortensen ◽  
Morten Arendt Rasmussen ◽  
Jakob Stokholm ◽  
Asker Daniel Brejnrod ◽  
Christina Balle ◽  
...  

Early-life microbiota has been linked to the development of chronic inflammatory diseases. It has been hypothesized that maternal vaginal microbiota is an important initial seeding source and therefore might have lifelong effects on disease risk. To understand maternal vaginal microbiota’s role in seeding the child’s microbiota and the extent of delivery mode-dependent transmission, we studied 665 mother–child dyads from the COPSAC2010 cohort. The maternal vaginal microbiota was evaluated twice in the third trimester and compared with the children’s fecal (at 1 week, 1 month, and 1 year of age) and airway microbiota (at 1 week, 1 month, and 3 months). Based on the concept of weighted transfer ratios (WTRs), we have identified bacterial orders for which the WTR displays patterns indicate persistent or transient transfer from the maternal vaginal microbiome, as well as orders that are shared at later time points independent of delivery mode, indicating a common reservoir.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sherrianne Ng ◽  
Muxuan Chen ◽  
Samit Kundu ◽  
Xuefei Wang ◽  
Zuyi Zhou ◽  
...  

AbstractVaginal microbiota-host interactions are linked to preterm birth (PTB), which continues to be the primary cause of global childhood mortality. Due to population size, the majority of PTB occurs in Asia, yet there have been few studies of the pregnancy vaginal microbiota in Asian populations. Here, we characterized the vaginal microbiome of 2689 pregnant Chinese women using metataxonomics and in a subset (n = 819), the relationship between vaginal microbiota composition, sialidase activity and leukocyte presence and pregnancy outcomes. Vaginal microbiota were most frequently dominated by Lactobacillus crispatus or L. iners, with the latter associated with vaginal leukocyte presence. Women with high sialidase activity were enriched for bacterial vaginosis-associated genera including Gardnerella, Atopobium and Prevotella. Vaginal microbiota composition, high sialidase activity and/or leukocyte presence was not associated with PTB risk suggesting underlying differences in the vaginal microbiota and/or host immune responses of Chinese women, possibly accounting for low PTB rates in this population.


2016 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 459-464 ◽  

Prenatal insults, such as maternal stress, are associated with an increased neurodevelopmental disease risk and impact males significantly more than females, including increased rates of autism, mental retardation, stuttering, dyslexia, and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Sex differences in the placenta, which begin with sex chromosomes, are likely to produce sex-specific transplacental signals to the developing brain. Our studies and others have identified X-linked genes that are expressed at higher levels in the female placenta. Through a genome-wide screen after maternal stress in mice, we identified the X-linked gene O-linked N-acetylglucosamine transferase (OGT) and demonstrated its causality in neurodevelopmental programming producing a male-specific stress phenotype. Elucidating the sex-specific molecular mechanisms involved in transplacental signals that impact brain development is key to understanding the sex bias in neurodevelopmental disorders and is expected to yield novel insight into disease risk and resilience.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sherrianne Ng ◽  
Muxuan Chen ◽  
Samit Kundu ◽  
Xuefei Wang ◽  
Zu-Yi Zhou ◽  
...  

Vaginal microbiota-host interactions are linked to preterm birth (PTB), which continues to be the primary cause of global childhood mortality. Despite the majority of PTB occuring in Asia, studies of the pregnancy vaginal microbiota are largely limited to Northern American and European populations. Here, we characterised the vaginal microbiome of 2689 pregnant Chinese women using metataxonomics and in a subset (n=823), the relationship between vaginal microbiota composition, sialidase activity and leukocyte presence and pregnancy outcomes. Vaginal microbiota were most frequently dominated by Lactobacillus crispatus or L. iners, with the latter associated with vaginal leukocyte presence. Women with high sialidase activity were enriched for bacterial vaginosis-associated genera including Gardnerella, Atopobium and Prevotella. Vaginal microbiota composition, high sialidase activity and/or leukocyte presence was not associated with PTB risk suggesting underlying differences in the vaginal microbiota and/or host immune responses of Chinese women, possibly accounting for low PTB rates in this population.


Author(s):  
Alex Grier ◽  
Ann L Gill ◽  
Haeja A Kessler ◽  
Anthony Corbett ◽  
Sanjukta Bandyopadhyay ◽  
...  

Abstract Rationale Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) is a leading cause of infant respiratory disease. Infant airway microbiota has been associated with respiratory disease risk and severity. The extent to which interactions between RSV and microbiota occur in the airway, and their impact on respiratory disease susceptibility and severity, are unknown. Objectives Characterize temporal associations between microbiota and RSV infection before, during, and after infants’ first respiratory illness. Methods 16S rRNA microbiota profiling of two infant cohorts in the first year of life: 1) a cross-sectional cohort of 89 RSV infected infants sampled during illness and 102 matched healthy controls, and 2) a matched longitudinal cohort of 12 infants who developed RSV infection and 12 who did not, sampled before, during, and after infection. Results We identified 12 taxa significantly associated with RSV infection. All 12 taxa were differentially abundant during infection, with 8 associated with disease severity. Nasal microbiota composition was more discriminative of healthy vs. infected than of disease severity. Conclusions Our findings elucidate the chronology of nasal microbiota dysbiosis and suggest an altered developmental trajectory associated with RSV infection. Microbial temporal dynamics reveal indicators of disease risk, correlates of illness and severity, and impact of RSV infection on microbiota composition.


2016 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 263-272 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erik A Willis ◽  
Amanda N Szabo-Reed ◽  
Lauren T Ptomey ◽  
Felicia L Steger ◽  
Jeffery J Honas ◽  
...  

Introduction Currently, no systematic review/meta-analysis has examined studies that used online social networks (OSN) as a primary intervention platform. Therefore, the purpose of this review was to evaluate the effectiveness of weight management interventions delivered through OSN. Methods PubMed, EMBASE, PsycINFO, Web of Science, and Scopus were searched (January 1990–November 2015) for studies with data on the effect of OSNs on weight loss. Only primary source articles that utilized OSN as the main platform for delivery of weight management/healthy lifestyle interventions, were published in English language peer-reviewed journals, and reported outcome data on weight were eligible for inclusion in this systematic review. Five articles were included in this review. Results One-hundred percent of the studies ( n = 5) reported a reduction in baseline weight. Three of the five studies (60%) reported significant decreases in body weight when OSN was paired with health educator support. Only one study reported a clinical significant weight loss of ≥5%. Conclusion Using OSN for weight management is in its early stages of development and, while these few studies show promise, more research is needed to acquire information about optimizing these interventions to increase their efficacy.


2018 ◽  
Vol 94 (8) ◽  
pp. 616-618 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeanne Tamarelle ◽  
Bertille de Barbeyrac ◽  
Isabelle Le Hen ◽  
Anne Thiébaut ◽  
Cécile Bébéar ◽  
...  

ObjectivesNew molecular techniques have allowed describing groups of bacterial communities in the vagina (community state types (CST)) that could play an important role in Chlamydia trachomatis (CT) infection. Our aim was to describe the distribution of CST in a population of young women in France.MethodsA cross-sectional study was carried out in June 2015 among anonymous young women attending a STI clinic in Bordeaux, France. Participants provided a vaginal sample for CT screening and sociodemographic data. CT was diagnosed using the Aptima-combo 2 transcription-mediated-amplification assay. Vaginal microbiota composition was characterised using 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing.ResultsMicrobiota composition and CT status were available for 132 women. CST dominated by Lactobacillus crispatus (CST-I), L. iners (CST-III) and a diversity of anaerobes (CST-IV) represented 37.1%, 38.6% and 22.0% of the sample, respectively. Twenty-one out of 132 women were CT positive. Proportions of CT-positive women were higher for samples belonging to CST-III (21.6%) and CST-IV (17.2%) than to CST-I (8.2%).ConclusionsFive CST were found in 132 young women from a STI clinic in France. These CSTs were not significantly associated with CT but higher proportions of CT-positive women were found in CST-III and CST-IV, consistent with a previous study in the Netherlands. Though our study lacked statistical power and was cross-sectional, it is a necessary first step to understand the structure of the vaginal microbiota in French women with or without infection before performing in-depth longitudinal studies.


Author(s):  
Priscila Dobbler ◽  
Volker Mai ◽  
Renato S. Procianoy ◽  
Rita C. Silveira ◽  
Andréa L. Corso ◽  
...  

Abstract The female lower genital tract harbors a complex microbial community essential for homeostasis and health. During pregnancy, the female body undergoes unique hormonal changes that contribute to weight gain as well as modulations in immune function that can affect microbiota composition. Several studies have described the vaginal microbiota of pregnant women from the USA, Europe and Mexico. Here we expand our knowledge about the vaginal microbial communities during the third trimester to healthy expectant Brazilian mothers. Vaginal samples were collected from patients delivering at the Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre, Brazil. Microbial DNA was isolated from samples and the V4 region of the 16S rRNA gene was amplified and sequenced using the PGM Ion Torrent. Brazilian pregnant women presented three distinct types of microbial community at the time of labor. Two microbial communities, Cluster 1 and Cluster 3, presented an overall dominance of Lactobacillus while Cluster 2 tended to present higher diversity and richness, with the presence of Pseudomonas, Prevotella and other vaginosis related bacteria. About half of the Brazilian mothers sampled here had dominance of L. iners. The proportion of mothers without dominance of any Lactobacillus was higher in Brazil (22%) compared to UK (2.4%) and USA, where this community type was not detected. The vaginal microbiota showed significant correlation with the composition of the babies’ gut microbiota (p-value = 0.002 with a R2 of 15.8%). Mothers presenting different vaginal microbiota shared different microorganisms with their newborns, which would reflect on initial colonizers of the developing newborns’ gut.


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