Metatranscriptome of human faecal microbial communities in a cohort of adult men. Academic Article uri icon

Overview

abstract

  • The gut microbiome is intimately related to human health, but it is not yet known which functional activities are driven by specific microorganisms' ecological configurations or transcription. We report a large-scale investigation of 372 human faecal metatranscriptomes and 929 metagenomes from a subset of 308 men in the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study. We identified a metatranscriptomic 'core' universally transcribed over time and across participants, often by different microorganisms. In contrast to the housekeeping functions enriched in this core, a 'variable' metatranscriptome included specialized pathways that were differentially expressed both across participants and among microorganisms. Finally, longitudinal metagenomic profiles allowed ecological interaction network reconstruction, which remained stable over the six-month timespan, as did strain tracking within and between participants. These results provide an initial characterization of human faecal microbial ecology into core, subject-specific, microorganism-specific and temporally variable transcription, and they differentiate metagenomically versus metatranscriptomically informative aspects of the human faecal microbiome.

publication date

  • January 15, 2018

Research

keywords

  • Feces
  • Gene Expression Profiling
  • Metagenome
  • Microbiota

Identity

PubMed Central ID

  • PMC6557121

Scopus Document Identifier

  • 85040707169

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

  • 10.1038/nrmicro1839

PubMed ID

  • 29335555

Additional Document Info

volume

  • 3

issue

  • 3