Identifying personal microbiomes using metagenomic codes.

ABSTRACT: Community composition within the human microbiome varies across individuals, but it remains unknown if this variation is sufficient to uniquely identify individuals within large populations or stable enough to identify them over time. We investigated this by developing a hitting set-based coding algorithm and applying it to the Human Microbiome Project population. Our approach defined body site-specific metagenomic codes: sets of microbial taxa or genes prioritized to uniquely and stably identify individuals. Codes capturing strain variation in clade-specific marker genes were able to distinguish among 100s of individuals at an initial sampling time point. In comparisons with follow-up samples collected 30-300 d later, ∼30% of individuals could still be uniquely pinpointed using metagenomi

SUBMITTER: Franzosa EA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4460507 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature