Development of a serological assay for the detection of Ureaplasma antibodies and its use in the selection of pregnant women at high risk for prematurity.

The aim of this project is to develop for a useful laboratory marker for prematurity.
Since prematurity is of multifactorial origin, we will concentrate on only one important etiology: the ascending infection originating from the lower genital tract.
The microorganism on which we will focus in our project is Ureaplasma spp., the microorganism most frequently isolated from the upper genital tract in case of preterm birth.
Since upper genital tract infection with Ureaplasma spp. can actually not be diagnosed early enough to start specific treatmen, there is a need ti develop a test for measuring Ureaplasma spp. antibodies. This test will be use retrospectively on serum samples already collected in a population of unselected pregnant women from whom the pregnancy outcome is already known.
We will evaluate the usefulness of this test in selecting women at high risk for prematurity.
If the test is able to define a population at high risk to delivering preterm, a therapeutic intervention study mey be initiated.