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The Role of Microbial Communities in Health and Disease
Author(s) -
FraserLiggett Claire M
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.24.1_supplement.199.3
Subject(s) - microbiome , identification (biology) , human health , human microbiome , human microbiome project , biology , human disease , disease , microbiology and biotechnology , ecology , environmental health , medicine , bioinformatics , genetics , pathology , gene
The human species is dependent for its survival upon the activities of billions of microorganisms that inhabit multiple environmental niches within and on the human body. Our current view of microbial‐host interactions is extremely limited by the fact that the overwhelming majority of microbial species (>99%) resists cultivation in the laboratory. Their identification and characterization requires the use of molecular approaches. The impact of this vast number of uncharacterized microbes on human health and disease is potentially significant and remains to be elucidated. The identification and characterization of these microbial communities will undoubtedly establish links between these microorganisms and disease, their roles in development of the immune system, and their overall impact on human evolution. The Human Microbiome Project (HMP), which is a collection of projects around the world, is just being launched with the ultimate goals being to better understand our microbiota and to ultimately manipulate it so as to optimize its beneficial effects on each individual. In this presentation, I will focus on a number of the conceptual and experimental challenges associated with the HMP, with particular emphasis on the human gastrointestinal tract, since this environment is home to the largest number of our microbial partners. (This work was funded in part by NIH grants R01 DE014868 and P01 DK078669).