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Contrasting Strategies: Human Eukaryotic Versus Bacterial Microbiome Research
Author(s) -
Hooks Katarzyna B.,
O'Malley Maureen A.
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
journal of eukaryotic microbiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.067
H-Index - 77
eISSN - 1550-7408
pISSN - 1066-5234
DOI - 10.1111/jeu.12766
Subject(s) - microbiome , human microbiome , biology , optimal distinctiveness theory , human microbiome project , computational biology , field (mathematics) , human disease , evolutionary biology , data science , bioinformatics , genetics , computer science , psychology , mathematics , gene , pure mathematics , psychotherapist
Most discussions of human microbiome research have focused on bacterial investigations and findings. Our target is to understand how human eukaryotic microbiome research is developing, its potential distinctiveness, and how problems can be addressed. We start with an overview of the entire eukaryotic microbiome literature (578 papers), show tendencies in the human‐based microbiome literature, and then compare the eukaryotic field to more developed human bacterial microbiome research. We are particularly concerned with problems of interpretation that are already apparent in human bacterial microbiome research (e.g. disease causality, probiotic interventions, evolutionary claims). We show where each field converges and diverges, and what this might mean for progress in human eukaryotic microbiome research. Our analysis then makes constructive suggestions for the future of the field.