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Human placenta has no microbiome but can contain potential pathogens.

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

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Authors

de Goffau, Marcus C 
Lager, Susanne 
Gaccioli, Francesca  ORCID logo  https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7178-8921
Cook, Emma 

Abstract

We sought to determine whether pre-eclampsia, spontaneous preterm birth or the delivery of infants who are small for gestational age were associated with the presence of bacterial DNA in the human placenta. Here we show that there was no evidence for the presence of bacteria in the large majority of placental samples, from both complicated and uncomplicated pregnancies. Almost all signals were related either to the acquisition of bacteria during labour and delivery, or to contamination of laboratory reagents with bacterial DNA. The exception was Streptococcus agalactiae (group B Streptococcus), for which non-contaminant signals were detected in approximately 5% of samples collected before the onset of labour. We conclude that bacterial infection of the placenta is not a common cause of adverse pregnancy outcome and that the human placenta does not have a microbiome, but it does represent a potential site of perinatal acquisition of S. agalactiae, a major cause of neonatal sepsis.

Description

Keywords

Biopsy, Cohort Studies, DNA Contamination, DNA, Bacterial, Delivery, Obstetric, Female, Humans, Infant, Newborn, Male, Metagenomics, Obstetric Labor Complications, Placenta, Pregnancy, Pregnancy Complications, Infectious, Pregnancy Outcome, RNA, Ribosomal, 16S, Reproducibility of Results, Sepsis, Sequence Analysis, DNA, Streptococcus agalactiae

Journal Title

Nature

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

0028-0836
1476-4687

Volume Title

572

Publisher

Springer Science and Business Media LLC

Rights

All rights reserved
Sponsorship
Medical Research Council (MR/K021133/1)
Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (CUH) (RG52380)
Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (CUH) (unknown)
Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (CUH) (146281)