# MiMA: Mother-infant Metabolite-transporter Atlas

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO · 2024 · $697,803

## Abstract

ABSTRACT/SUMMARY
 The maternal-fetal/infant axis of transport represents one of, if not the highest duration and intimacy of
long-distance communication across multi-tissue barriers between two individuals. Transporters enable such
communication by controlling the uptake and distribution of metabolites across membranes, tissues, organs, and
even between the mother and the infant. Remarkably, only a few hundred human transporters control the
exchange of tens of thousands of nutrients and metabolites between different tissue compartments. A
comprehensive map of transporters to tissue barriers, and to the substrates (nutrients, metabolites, dietary
supplement constituents, xenobiotics, and drugs) whose passage they facilitate along the maternal-fetal/infant
axis, are yet to emerge because we simply do not know the identity of most transported metabolites, or how to
prioritize candidate hits. We propose to create a Mother-infant Metabolite-transporter Atlas (MiMA) devoted to
the deorphanization of transporters, while prioritizing our studies by considering their expression, abundance,
localization and importance at tissue barriers of mother and developing infant, including the fetal blood-brain
barrier (BBB) and infant gut in the context of the lactating mother and child. MiMA will leverage existing advanced
infrastructures and apply process innovations/expertise to produce an atlas that can be used as a basis for
system integration of metabolomics, proteomics, and transporter biology. MiMA seeks to answer the following
questions: (1) How does a network of only a few hundred transporters control and optimize levels of perhaps
thousands of small molecules along the mother-infant mammary gland-gut-brain axis? (2) Which endogenous
small molecules and xenobiotics/drugs does each of these transporters recognize and permeate? (3) Are there
rules that ensure a homeostatic system (patterns of metabolite:transporter specificity, tissue distribution,
function), and can these rules inform precision nutrition and precision medicine?
 This project is expected to generate a comprehensive atlas populated with precise knowledge of what
metabolites bind to which transporters to be able to move across organ/tissue compartments. MiMA will also
create a novel workflow to empirically validate specificity among interacting metabolite-transporter pairs,
combining metabolomics and molecular structural biology. The project will validate specificity among interacting
metabolite-transporter pairs and create advanced nanobody reagents to interrogate localization as perturb
function of transporters. MiMA will produce omics-validated model systems to have better contextual
understanding of transporters in normal and diseased human physiology. Taken together, MiMA is expected to
deliver an integrated map or mother-infant metabolite-transporter atlas to formulate the “rules” that govern
tissue/body homeostasis and serve as resource for many exciting research questions to be asked a...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10857996
- **Project number:** 1R01HD114758-01
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO
- **Principal Investigator:** GEOFFREY A CHANG
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $697,803
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2024-09-17 → 2029-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10857996

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10857996, MiMA: Mother-infant Metabolite-transporter Atlas (1R01HD114758-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-27 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10857996. Licensed CC0.

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