VMAP: Vaginal Microbiome Atlas During Pregnancy.

Area of Science:

• Reproductive Health
• Microbiome Research
• Bioinformatics

Background:

• The vaginal microbiome plays a crucial role in pregnancy outcomes, with alterations linked to preterm birth (PTB) risk.
• Understanding these microbial communities is vital for improving maternal and infant health.
• Existing data is fragmented, hindering comprehensive analysis.

Approach:

• VMAP (Vaginal Microbiome Atlas during Pregnancy) is a novel web application developed to visualize vaginal microbiome data.
• It aggregates and analyzes 3,909 samples from 1,416 pregnant individuals across 11 studies using the open-source MaLiAmPi tool.
• The application offers interactive visualizations of microbial diversity, community state types (CSTs), and taxonomic composition.

Key Points:

• VMAP provides a centralized, accessible resource for exploring complex vaginal microbiome data.
• Visualizations include diversity metrics, VALENCIA CSTs, and detailed phylotype/taxonomy breakdowns.
• The platform facilitates comparative analyses between different studies and populations.

Conclusions:

• VMAP serves as a valuable research tool for investigating the vaginal microbiome's impact on pregnancy.
• It empowers researchers to better understand factors contributing to healthy term pregnancies and adverse outcomes like PTB.
• This atlas promotes further data analysis and discovery in reproductive microbiome science.