Gut microbiomic analysis of 1,479 pregnant women during pregnancy

*** Thank you, Blake Williams from the University of Illinois at Chicago, for bringing to our attention that the forward and reverse sequencing reads of 750 samples were inadvertently swapped during the upload. If a reversed sample list is required, please feel free to contact us via the author's email at [e-mail]. Woman's gut microbiota during pregnancy is important for nutrient acquisition and disease dependence, and has been linked to infant health. However, credible information on gut microbial dynamics and characteristics of pregnancy women is lacked, mostly due to the limitation of relatively small sample size. In this study, we provided a comprehensive overview of the gut microbial characteristics of 1,479 pregnant women. We identified a core microbiota of the pregnant women, and displayed a similar overall structure of core microbiota when compared with the age-matched nonpregnant women. Our data showed that the temporal variation of gut microbiota, during the gestational age from 9th week to antepartum, was relatively limited. Building upon rich metadata, we revealed a set of exogenous and intrinsic host factors that highly correlated with the variation of gut microbiota. These microbiota covariates were concentrated in host basic properties (e.g. age, resident type, and weight-associated parameters) and blood clinical parameters, suggesting that individual heterogeneity is the major force for shaping the gut microbial community composition during pregnancy. Moreover, we identified the microbial and functional markers which associated to age, pre-pregnant weight, resident type, and pre-pregnancy and gestational diseases. Gut microbiota during pregnancy was also an effective indicator for gestational weight gain. Our study demonstrated the structure, temporal variation, and effect size of confounding factors of gut microbiota during pregnancy, and strengthened the understanding of microbe-host interactions. The results from this study offer new materials and prospects for gut microbiome research at clinical and diagnostic field.