# Traffic Exposure, Maternal Metabolome and Birth Outcomes Study (TEMMBO Study)

> **NIH NIH R21** · EMORY UNIVERSITY · 2021 · $229,499

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
Exposures to traffic-related air pollution (TRAP), a primary source of urban air pollution, during pregnancy have
been linked to adverse birth outcomes and the development of atopic diseases in childhood. Notably,
communities of color and the poor, especially African American (AA) women and children, disproportionately
experience both high TRAP exposures and adverse birth and child health outcomes. The mechanisms
underlying how maternal TRAP exposures may affect birth outcomes and shape child health disparities are still
largely unknown. This is due, in part, to the substantial challenges in accurately characterizing internal dose of
exposures and biological responses to TRAP. High-resolution metabolomics (HRM) -- a high-throughput analysis
method involving the identification and quantification of thousands of metabolic features associated with
exogenous exposure and endogenous processes -- has emerged as a powerful tool to improve exposure
assessment to complex environmental mixtures. In previous work among adults and adolescents, we used HRM
to detect metabolic perturbations following exposures to urban air pollution, where we identified and verified
several oxidative stress and inflammation-related pathways significantly associated with increased TRAP
exposures. These promising initial findings and prior published work on TRAP-mediated response related to birth
outcomes and child development have led us to hypothesize that elevated exposure to TRAPs during pregnancy
will result in perturbations in specific metabolic pathways, especially those linked to oxidative stress and
inflammation, which will increase risk for adverse birth outcomes including preterm birth and small-size-for-
gestational age. Our multidisciplinary team of investigators proposes to test this hypothesis in a cohort of 320
AA pregnant women with well-phenotyped birth outcomes and longitudinal high-resolution metabolic profiling. In
doing this, we will: 1) generate retrospective estimates of individual-level TRAP exposures using
spatiotemporally-resolved source dispersion models (Aim 1); 2) examine whether prenatal exposure to TRAP is
longitudinally associated with perturbations in maternal metabolome (Aim 2); and 3) explore whether maternal
metabolic pathways that associate with increased TRAP exposures also associate with adverse birth outcomes
(i.e. preterm birth and small-size-for-gestational age) under a mediation framework (Exploratory Aim 3). The
proposed Traffic Exposure, Maternal Metabolome and Birth Outcomes Study (TEMMBO Study) is highly
innovative in being the first longitudinal study to examine links among TRAP exposures, metabolic perturbations
and adverse birth outcomes in a socio-economically diverse, exceptionally phenotyped AA maternal-child cohort.
This linkage will include novel exposure assessment through external, traffic emission exposure modeling paired
with internal, high-resolution metabolomics data. Together, results will contribute ...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10217752
- **Project number:** 1R21ES032117-01A1
- **Recipient organization:** EMORY UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Donghai Liang
- **Activity code:** R21 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $229,499
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2021-03-16 → 2023-02-28

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10217752

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10217752, Traffic Exposure, Maternal Metabolome and Birth Outcomes Study (TEMMBO Study) (1R21ES032117-01A1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10217752. Licensed CC0.

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