RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Metabolomic signature of the maternal microbiota in the fetus
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 2020.09.28.317081
DO 10.1101/2020.09.28.317081
A1 Tiina Pessa-Morikawa
A1 Aleksi Husso
A1 Olli Kärkkäinen
A1 Ville Koistinen
A1 Antti Iivanainen
A1 Mikael Niku
YR 2020
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/09/29/2020.09.28.317081.abstract
AB The maternal microbiota affects the development of the offspring potentially by microbial metabolites translocating to the foetus through the placenta. We compared placentae, foetal intestine and brain from germ-free (GF) and specific pathogen free (SPF) mouse dams by non-targeted metabolomic profiling. 100 annotated metabolites and altogether 3680 molecular features had significantly different levels in the placental and/or foetal tissues of GF and SPF mice. More than half of the annotated and differentially expressed metabolites had decreased levels in the GF tissues, suggesting their microbial origin or a metabolic response of the host to the presence of gut microbiota. These include known or suggested microbial metabolites, such as 5-aminovaleric acid betaine, (β-)alanine betaine, trimethylamine N-oxide, catechol-O-sulfate, and hippuric acid. Several metabolites had increased levels in the GF mice. These could be precursors of microbial metabolites or indicators of a metabolic response to the absence of gut microbiota. 99 molecular features were only detected in the SPF mice, suggesting the existence of unidentified microbially modified metabolites that potentially influence fetal development. Only a few molecular features showed significantly different levels in the placental tissues but not in other tissues, indicating that the potential microbial metabolites mostly pass through the placenta into the foetus.Competing Interest StatementOlli Kärkkäinen and Ville Koistinen are co-founders of Afekta Technologies Ltd., company providing metabolomics services.