Chemicals that accumulate within the vagina, potentially originating from personal care products, may contribute to spontaneous preterm birth, in keeping with a recent study by researchers at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons.

The study of 232 pregnant women found that a handful of non-biological chemicals previously present in cosmetics and hygiene products are strongly related to preterm birth.

Our findings suggest that we’d like to look more closely at whether common environmental exposures are in reality causing preterm births and, in that case, where these exposures are coming from. The excellent news is that if these chemicals are in charge, it could be possible to limit these potentially harmful exposures.”

Tal Korem, PhD, study co-leader, assistant professor within the Program for Mathematical Genomics and the Departments of Systems Biology and Obstetrics and Gynecology at Columbia University

The study was published January 12 in Nature Microbiology.

Preterm birth, childbirth before 37 weeks of pregnancy, is the primary reason for neonatal death and may result in quite a lot of lifelong health issues. Two-thirds of preterm births occur spontaneously, but despite extensive research, there are not any methods for predicting or stopping spontaneous preterm birth.

Several studies have suggested that imbalances within the vaginal microbiome play a job in preterm birth and other problems while pregnant. Nevertheless, researchers haven’t been capable of reproducibly link specific populations of microorganisms with adversarial pregnancy outcomes.

The research team, co-led by Korem and Maayan Levy, PhD, of the University of Pennsylvania, decided to take a more expansive view of the vaginal microenvironment by its metabolome. The metabolome is the entire set of small molecules present in a selected biological area of interest, including metabolites produced by local cells and microorganisms and molecules that come from external sources. “The metabolome could be seen as a functional readout of the ecosystem as an entire,” Korem says. “Microbiome profiling can tell us who the microbes are; metabolomics gets us near understanding what the microbes are doing.”

In the present study, the researchers measured over 700 different metabolites within the second-trimester metabolome of 232 pregnant women, including 80 pregnancies that ended prematurely.

The study found multiple metabolites that were significantly higher in women who had delivered early than in those that delivered at full term.

“Several of those metabolites are chemicals that will not be produced by humans or microbes-;what we call xenobiotics,” says Korem. “These include diethanolamine, ethyl-beta glucoside, tartrate, and ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid. While we didn’t discover the source of those xenobiotics in our participants, all might be present in cosmetics and hygiene products.”

Algorithm predicts preterm birth

Using machine learning models, the team also developed an algorithm based on metabolite levels that may predict preterm birth with good accuracy, potentially paving the best way for early diagnostics.

Though the predictions were more accurate than models based on microbiome data and maternal characteristics (akin to age, BMI, race, preterm birth history, and prior births), the brand new model still needs improvement and further validation before it might be utilized in the clinic.

Despite the present limitations, Korem says, “our results display that vaginal metabolites have the potential to predict, months upfront, which women are prone to deliver early.”

Source:

Columbia University Irving Medical Center

Journal reference:

Kindschuh, W.F., et al. (2023) Preterm birth is related to xenobiotics and predicted by the vaginal metabolome. Nature Microbiology. doi.org/10.1038/s41564-022-01293-8.