Systems biology can unravel complex biology but has not been extensively applied to human newborns, a group highly vulnerable to a wide range of diseases. We optimized methods to extract transcriptomic, proteomic, metabolomic, cytokine/chemokine, and single cell immune phenotyping data from <1 ml of blood, a volume readily obtained from newborns. Indexing to baseline and applying innovative integrative computational methods reveals dramatic changes along a remarkably stable developmental trajectory over the first week of life. This is most evident in changes of interferon and complement pathways, as well as neutrophil-associated signaling. Validated across two independent cohorts of newborns from West Africa and Australasia, a robust and common trajectory emerges, suggesting a purposeful rather than random developmental path. Systems biology and innovative data integration can provide fresh insights into the molecular ontogeny of the first week of life, a dynamic developmental phase that is key for health and disease.
CITATION STYLE
Lee, A. H., Shannon, C. P., Amenyogbe, N., Bennike, T. B., Diray-Arce, J., Idoko, O. T., … Kollmann, T. R. (2019). Dynamic molecular changes during the first week of human life follow a robust developmental trajectory. Nature Communications, 10(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-08794-x
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