The Human Microbiome Project: A Community Resource for the Healthy Human Microbiome
Name
Gevers-2012-The human microbiome.pdf
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279.92 KB
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Adobe PDF
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686319f32504df6c0c7592df17dfa56a
Author(s)
Gevers, Dirk
Date Issued
August 2012
Journal
PLoS Biology
Publisher
Public Library of Science
Citation
Gevers, Dirk et al. “The Human Microbiome Project: A Community Resource for the Healthy Human Microbiome.” PLoS Biology 10.8 (2012): e1001377. CrossRef. Web.
Version
Final published version
Abstract
The Human Microbiome Project (HMP) [1],[2] is a concept that was long in the making. After the Human Genome Project, interest grew in sequencing the “other genome" of microbes carried in and on the human body [3],[4]. Microbial ecologists, realizing that >99% of environmental microbes could not be easily cultured, developed approaches to study microorganisms in situ [5], primarily by sequencing the 16S ribosomal RNA gene (16S) as a phylogenetic and taxonomic marker to identify members of microbial communities [6]. The need to develop corresponding new methods for culture-independent studies [7],[8] in turn precipitated a sea change in the study of microbes and human health, inspiring the new term “metagenomics" [9] both to describe a technological approach—sequencing and analysis of the genes from whole communities rather than from individual genomes—and to emphasize that microbes function within communities rather than as individual species. This shift from a focus on individual organisms to microbial interactions [10] culminated in a National Academy of Science report [11], which outlined challenges and promises for metagenomics as a way of understanding the foundational role of microbial communities both in the environment and in human health.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
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Creative Commons Attribution
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001377
