Maternal sepsis in the era of genomic medicine

Purpose: Maternal sepsis remains one of the leading causes of direct and indirect maternal mortality both in high- and low-income environments. In the last two decades, systems biology approaches, based on ‘-omics’ technologies, have started revolutionizing the diagnosis and management of the septic syndrome. The scope of this narrative review is to present an overview of the basic ‘-omics’ technologies, exemplified by cases relevant to maternal sepsis. Methods: Narrative review of the new ‘-omics’ technologies based on a detailed review of the literature. Results: After presenting the main ‘omics’ technologies, we discuss their limitations and the need for integrated approaches that encompass research efforts across multiple ‘-omics’ layers in the ‘-omics’ cascade between the genome and the phenome. Conclusions: Systems biology approaches are revolutionizing the research landscape in maternal sepsis. There is a need for increased awareness, from the side of health practitioners, as a requirement for the effective implementation of the new technologies in the research and clinical practice in maternal sepsis.