An overview of major metagenomic studies on human microbiomes in health and disease

Abstract

Many microbes are important symbiotes of human. They form specific microbiota communities, participate in various kinds of biological processes of their host and thus deeply affect human health status. Metagenomic sequencing has been widely used in human microbiota study due to its capacity of studying all genetic materials in an environment as a whole without any extra need of isolation or cultivation of microorganisms. Many efforts have been made by researchers in this area trying to dig out interesting knowledge from various metagenome data. In this review, we go through some prominent studies in the metagenomic area. We summarize them into three categories, constructing taxonomy and gene reference, characterization of microbiome distribution patterns, and detection of microbiome alternations associated with specific human phenotypes or diseases. Some available data resources are also provided. This review can serve as an entrance to this exciting and rapidly developing field for researchers interested in human microbiomes.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

metagenome / human microbiome / taxonomy and gene reference / distribution pattern / microbiome variation

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This work has been funded in part by the National Basic Research Program of China (No. 2012CB316504) and NSFC (No. 61561146396).

COMPLIANCE WITH ETHICS GUIDELINES

The authors Hongfei Cui, Yingxue Li and Xuegong Zhang declare that they have no conflict of interests. All data were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000 (5).

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

2016 Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg