ENDIA is the first study globally with recruitment during pregnancy to investigate the developmental origins of type 1 diabetes and how the environment interacts with the genome to drive the development of autoimmune beta cell destruction.
The microbiome and metabolome
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The cohort is nearing its recruitment target of 1,400 mother-infant pairs from early pregnancy. The infant is at genetic risk for the disease by having a first-degree relative with type 1 diabetes. Study visits occur at each trimester of pregnancy, at the time of and just after birth, every 3 months during the first two years of life, and 6-monthly thereafter. Multiple biological specimens are collected from the mother during pregnancy (swabs, faeces, urine, blood), from the baby once born (swabs, faeces, urine, blood), as well as breast milk from the mother. Blood and faecal samples are also collected from other family members to provide a complete picture of the family’s genetic and environmental risk profile. Making these resources available to the wider research community will stimulate broader thinking around novel analytical, predictive, and therapeutic strategies targeting type 1 diabetes.
SPECIMENS UNDERPINNING FUTURE RESEARCH
In excess of 40,000 biological specimens have already been collected from ENDIA participants with >100,000 samples remaining to be collected as part of the ENDIA protocol. The ENDIA biorepository, held at the University of Adelaide’s BioBank Facility, represents an invaluable resource that will underpin future national and international collaborative efforts to elucidate the developmental origins of type 1 diabetes. In recognition of this, the ENDIA Study Team has developed a policy for providing reasonable access to samples and/or clinical data generated by the study that will contribute towards ENDIA’s goal of identifying environmental factors and gene-environmental interactions that modify disease risk.
MULTIPLE APPROACHES AND A DIVERSE TEAM
While still early days, the first results are revealing differences in the composition of the microbiome and virome of individuals who do and do not have type 1 diabetes. Such ‘omics investigations are game-changing but expensive and further funding will be required to complete the analysis of the ‘big data’ generated from ENDIA samples. From 2019, investigation can begin of the interactions between genes and environment through the ‘omes during pregnancy and the first year of life in the ENDIA children who develop the first stages of type
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ENDIA STUDY INVESTIGATORS ARE DIVERSIFIED ACROSS SEVERAL PORTFOLIOS INCLUDE