# Maintenance and Enhancement of the Atlanta African American Maternal-Child Cohort: Exposome Profiling via High-resolution Metabolomics and Integration of Microbiome-Metabolome-Epigenome Data

> **NIH NIH R24** · EMORY UNIVERSITY · 2021 · $364,287

## Abstract

PROJECT ABSTRACT
Environmental exposures during the critical prenatal and early childhood periods can result in lifelong health
consequences. Mechanisms underlying these exposure-health relationships are complex, with exogenous
exposures (such as chemical toxicants) affecting endogenous processes (such as gene regulation and
metabolism), which perturb metabolic pathways that lead to adverse health outcomes. Both adverse exposures
and their health consequences disproportionately impact African American (AA) women and children,
highlighting that health disparities begin in utero and are amplified postnatally. Among outcomes
disproportionately experienced by AA children are preterm birth, neurodevelopmental deficits, and obesity – all
linked to environmental exposures, yet poorly understood due to etiologic complexity. Our team is currently
investigating preterm birth and neurodevelopment through 18-months in relation to pre- and postnatal
exposures to environmental toxicants and biopsychosocial risk factors in cohorts of pregnant AA women
(R01NR014800, R01MD009064) and their infants (R01MD009746) and via our P50 Children's Environmental
Health Center (P50ES026071) in collaboration with the Emory HERCULES Exposome Research Center (P30
ES019776). We are also evaluating child obesity and neurodevelopment at 2-5 years of age under the
Environmental Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) program (UG3OD023318). Through this R24 mechanism, we
propose to: (1) Continue to enroll AA women at 8-14 wks' gestation, collect data at three time points during
pregnancy, and engage delivered mother-child dyads in on-going postnatal follow-up studies to allow
continued investigation of relationships between prenatal and early childhood exposures to chemical and non-
chemical stressors and child health outcomes (Cohort Maintenance Aim); (2) Evaluate the performance of
high-resolution mass spectrometry coupled with gas chromatography (GC-HRMS) for quantifying persistent
organic pollutants (POPs) microliter serum volumes by comparing measured POP concentrations to those
measured using conventional targeted analytic chemistry approaches in the same cohort (Resource
Infrastructure – Exposure Characterization Aim); and (3) Adapt tools for multi-omic data integration to enable
the display, visualization, and integration of comprehensive exposure assessment and biological effect data –
to include chemical toxicant concentrations and metabolomic (KEGG pathway), epigenomic (gene methylation
and expression), and microbiome data – and the analysis of associations with pregnancy and birth outcomes
within our cohort and across cohort collaborations (Resource Infrastructure - Data Preparation Aim). Through
this work, we expect to advance environmental health science around the assessment of chemical
mixtures (with a focus on POPs) and their adverse preclinical (metabolic and epigenetic) health effects
in our own high disparity population of pregnant women and newborns and to support other co...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10218178
- **Project number:** 5R24ES029490-04
- **Recipient organization:** EMORY UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** ANNE Lang DUNLOP
- **Activity code:** R24 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $364,287
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2018-09-30 → 2024-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10218178

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10218178, Maintenance and Enhancement of the Atlanta African American Maternal-Child Cohort: Exposome Profiling via High-resolution Metabolomics and Integration of Microbiome-Metabolome-Epigenome Data (5R24ES029490-04). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10218178. Licensed CC0.

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