The first 1000 days of life, from conception to 2 years, are a critical window for the influence of environmental exposures on the assembly of the oral microbiome, which is the precursor to dental caries (decay), one of the most prevalent microbially induced disorders worldwide. While it is known that the human microbiome is susceptible to environmental exposures, there is limited understanding of the impact of prenatal and early childhood exposures on the oral microbiome trajectory and oral health. A barrier has been the lack of technology to directly measure the foetal "exposome", which includes nutritional and toxic exposures crossing the placenta. Another barrier has been the lack of statistical methods to account for the high dimensional data generated by-omic assays. Through identifying which early life exposures influence the oral microbiome and modify oral health, these findings can be translated into interventions to reduce dental decay prevalence.

中文翻译：

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早期生活环境如何影响口腔微生物群并决定儿童时期的口腔健康结果？

生命的前 1000 天，从受孕到 2 岁，是环境暴露对口腔微生物组组装影响的关键窗口，口腔微生物组是龋齿（龋齿）的前兆，龋齿是最普遍的微生物引起的疾病之一全世界。虽然众所周知，人类微生物组易受环境暴露的影响，但对产前和儿童早期暴露对口腔微生物组轨迹和口腔健康的影响了解有限。一个障碍是缺乏直接测量胎儿“暴露”的技术，其中包括穿过胎盘的营养和毒性暴露。另一个障碍是缺乏统计方法来解释由组学分析产生的高维数据。