Abundance profiling of specific gene groups using precomputed gut metagenomes yields novel biological hypotheses.

ABSTRACT: The gut microbiota is essentially a multifunctional bioreactor within a human being. The exploration of its enormous metabolic potential provides insights into the mechanisms underlying microbial ecology and interactions with the host. The data obtained using "shotgun" metagenomics capture information about the whole spectrum of microbial functions. However, each new study presenting new sequencing data tends to extract only a little of the information concerning the metabolic potential and often omits specific functions. A meta-analysis of the available data with an emphasis on biomedically relevant gene groups can unveil new global trends in the gut microbiota. As a step toward the reuse of metagenomic data, we developed a method for the quantitative profiling of user-defined groups of g

SUBMITTER: Yarygin K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5407692 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature