The story of the human body : evolution, health, and disease pdf
This first phase of the HMP (HMP1) thus yielded a wealth of community resources: nucleotide sequences of microorganisms and communities from a large number of isolates, individuals, and populations ( ) 34, 35, 36, 37 protocols to support reproducible body-wide microbiome sampling and data generation 38, 39, 40 and computational methods for microbiome analysis and epidemiology 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47.
#The story of the human body : evolution, health, and disease pdf skin
Studies of targeted populations identified ecological states of niches such as the vagina 24, 25, skin 26, 27, 28, and gut 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, among many others ( ). Studies of both a baseline adult population 21, 22, 23 and ‘demonstration’ populations with specific disease states established typical ranges (for some populations) of microbial membership and enzymatic repertoires across the body, combinations of metabolic functions that were either prevalent or strain-specific, and some of the host factors (such as race or ethnicity) that determine this variation. Launched in 2007 20, the first phase of the program sought to determine whether there were common elements to ‘healthy’ microbiomes, in the absence of overt disease. The National Institutes of Health Human Microbiome Project was one of the first large-scale initiatives to address a subset of these questions 19 (Fig. How dynamic is the microbiome during processes such as pregnancy or viral infection? Which changes in the microbiome represent causes rather than effects of changes in health? Which molecular elements of a personalized microbiome might be responsible for health outcomes, and how do they integrate with and maintain physiological processes such as the immune system and metabolism? And what ecological elements dictate the success of a microbiota transplant, and why are they successful in treating some individuals and conditions, but not others? The microbiome can be perturbed by conditions such as inflammatory bowel disease and diabetes, but a variety of microbiome-linked health states, and the underpinnings of these links, remain unexplored.
Microbial diversity manifests differently in different ecological niches of the body for example, greater diversity is generally expected in the gut, but can be associated with dysbiotic states and risk of adverse events in the female reproductive tract.
Every human being appears to carry their own, largely individual, suite of microbial strains 10, 11, which are acquired early in life 12, 13, 14, differ between environments and populations 15, 16, and can persist for years 17 or undergo relatively rapid transitions 18. Epidemiology and model systems have been used to identify associations between changes in the microbiome and conditions ranging from autism 4 to cancer 5, 6, 7, and microbial and immunological mechanisms have been identified that affect, for example, the efficacy of drugs used to treat cardiac conditions 8 or survival during graft-versus-host disease 9.Ĭontemporary studies of the human microbiome have also been a source of basic biological and translational surprises, exposing a compelling range of novel findings and open questions. In the 18 years since the publication of the first human genome, studies of the microbiome have grown from culture-based surveys of the oral cavity and gut to molecular profiles of microbial biochemistry in all ecological niches of the human body 1, 2, 3. Although the ’omics era has accelerated all aspects of biological research, its effects have been particularly apparent in studies of microbial communities and the human microbiome.