“Beyond providing the global view of the human gut microbiome, the extensive gene catalogue we have established enables future studies of association of the microbial genes with human phenotypes and, even more broadly, human living habits, taking into account the environment, including diet, from birth to old age. We anticipate that these studies will lead to a much more complete understanding of human biology than the one we presently have.”
I feel kinda cheezy for quoting the very last paragraph of this long and interesting paper. But there is so much to like about it, I didn’t know which to quote.
Basically, these folks sequenced the bacteria on fecal samples from a lot of healthy folks, and folks with IBD (inflammatory bowel disease), ulcerative colitis, obesity, and who were overweight.
They confirmed that each of these states have their own particular microbiome profile. But they also did a ton of metagenomic analysis, even establishing what the “minimal microbiome” is. And in their analysis they describe what this minimal microbiome mean to human health and physiological processes.
Quite fascinating.
And the reason they are building this catalog (3.3 million microbial genes!) is that they will continue studying the subjects who donated the samples. And this is a good addition to the International Human Microbiome Consortium.
And of note, about half the authors of this work are from BGI-Shenzen, the über-sequencing institute, but the rest of the collaborators are from Europe and some from the large European sequencing centers. This reminds me of an article about BGI-Shenzen that discusses how the center is building up amazing collaborations outside of China. This is proof of what those collaborations can yield. We all gain, and it’s so much better than trying to do it alone, for the glory of China.
via A human gut microbial gene catalogue established by metagenomic sequencing : Article : Nature.
