The PEARL-AGE Study
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Multigenerational gut bacteria transmission and its stability in families.
IRAS ID
305505
Contact name
Falk Hildebrand
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Quadram Institute Bioscience
Duration of Study in the UK
5 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
The PEARL study (IRAS ID 241880) is a longitudinal study investigating microbial profiles from different body sites throughout pregnancy and early life in a healthy cohort of mothers and their babies with the aim to provide key insights into how pregnancy and early life microbiome profiles correlate with participant health. We plan to extend this cohort, by newly recruiting family members of the PEARL mother in the PEARL-AGE cohort. In the PEARL-AGE project we will investigate gut microbial transfer and the evolution of these microbes in a multigenerational family cohort. For this, we will ask PEARL-AGE participants to provide faecal samples and fill in questionnaires. Because the PEARL study is already underway and collecting faecal samples for two family generations (mother and child), it is straightforward to extend this cohort to include four generations, by including siblings, fathers/guardians, grandparents and great-grandparents of the infant in the PEARL study. Family physical and emotional closeness and other metadata (e.g. birth mode, nutritional habits, activity, travel, health data, antibiotic use, social-economics) will be questionnaire derived. Microbiome profiles will be derived from metagenomic sequencing of faecal samples. Contaminant human DNA will be used to reconstruct the host genotype of participants (optional consent). This will be associated to the persistence and maintenance of microbial populations in the human gut.
The temporal stability of these microbes at individual, family and geographic levels will be evaluated in detail; the use of multigenerational family cohorts in the new cohort PEARL-AGE will enable unprecedented precision in tracing microbial transmission routes in both infants and adults.
Additionally, using comparative genomics will enable us to study the evolutionary adaptations family transferred microbes routinely undergo during colonization of new hosts. A wide collection of metadata will allow us to identify non-generational factors in microbial transfer as well as confounding factors, to identify disrupted transmission chains in the family-associated microbiome.REC name
Yorkshire & The Humber - South Yorkshire Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
22/YH/0021
Date of REC Opinion
1 Feb 2022
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion