Microbiomes Flashcards
What is microbiota
The microorganisms inhabiting a specific environment/ habitat
What is a microbiome
The collective gene pool of the microbiota
How do we study microbiomes (sequences)
-16S rRNA amplicon sequencing: identifies which microbes are there
-Metagenomic sequencing: identifies which microbes are there and what functions they have
-Transcriptomics/ RNAseq and metabolomics: identify what functions microbes are actively doing
How do we study microbiomes
We examine differences in microbial communities using 3 common metrics
1) alpha diversity
2) beta diversity
3) taxonomic abundance
What is alpha diversity
-wihtin sample diversity
-answers how diverse are the microbial taxa the microbial taxa in a single sample
What is beta diversity
-between sample diversity
answers how do microbial communities differ between samples
What is species richness
the number of microbial taxa
What is species diversity
the evenness of microbial taxa
What is relative abundance
what proportion of our sequences are assigned to a taxa
What are the goals of the human microbiome project
-determine whether individuals share a core human microbiome
-understand whether changes in the human microbiome are correlated with changes in human health
-develop the new technological and bioinformatic tools needed to support these goals-address the ethical, legal and social implications raised by human microbiome research
What does the human microbiome project used 16S RNA sequencing for
-to characterize the complexity of the microbial communities samples
What does the human microbiome project use metagenomics for
used to provide insights into functions performed by the human microbiome
What do microbiomes influence in our body
phenotype
How do microbiomes influence our phenotype
-short chain fatty acids are by-products of microbial fermentation
-some trigger anti-inflammatory immune pathways
