Back to the future: Prenatal life and perinatal programming

Abstract

In recent years, medicine is evolving into a precision-based science. In such evolution, the holistic view of the human being is a key point. "Omics" technologies allowed significant step toward the characterization of several metabolic processes, both in healthy and pathologic conditions, through the analysis of many fluids and tissues. These tools helped in a detailed description of selective gene expression, microbiota characteristics, multipotent stem cells metabolism, and dynamic changes in biofluids. In this chapter, we underline the fundamental and promising role of the new technologies, especially metabolomics, microbiomics, and big-data analysis. Moreover, we report the main results of our personal experience of metabolomics application in studies regarding prenatal, perinatal, and postnatal conditions, breastfeeding and neonatal nutrition, including the first metabolomics study investigating BM composition performed by our study group in 2012, and some studies involving childhood and adult life. We believe that, in the next future, the translational power of metabolomics will be the whole comprehension of the meaning of each metabolite significant variation, understanding the cause of variation, the effects played on fetus and newborn and if metabolites could become therapeutic targets or could orient nutritional strategies or pharmacotherapies.