Metabotyping in early infancy after exposure to obesity in pregnancy (FA2 modul 4)

Module 4 of Focus Area 2 (FA2/4) aims at defining metabotypes among 3-month-old infants of obese mothers following early nutritional exposure that are predictive of later overweight and metabolic disturbances.

Based on results of cord blood metabolomics of samples from the prospective mother-child cohort PEACHES conducted in the first funding period of enable, we intend to apply state-of-the-art targeted and non-targeted mass spectrometry-based metabolomic tools to offspring blood samples collected 3 months after delivery.

Integration of data obtained in Module 1 (cord blood metabolome, phenotype and metabolome of 7- to 8-year old children) will enable the longitudinal analysis of individual metabolite profiles from delivery to early school age on a highly defined and deeply characterized cohort for the first time.

Our objectives:

  • define specific metabotypes in young infants of mothers with preconceptional obesity vs. normal-weight mothers by holistic metabolite profiling of blood
  • characterize associations between metabotypes among infants (3 months) of mothers with preconceptional obesity and childhood overweight (7 to 8 years)
  • confirm candidate risk markers previously identified in cord blood of offspring of obese mothers (first funding period of enable) and characterize metabolites modulated by the type of early nutrition (breast feeding vs. formula)