European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Meyerhofstrasse 1, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany.
Nature. 2011 May 12;473(7346):174-80. doi: 10.1038/nature09944. Epub 2011 Apr 20.
Our knowledge of species and functional composition of the human gut microbiome is rapidly increasing, but it is still based on very few cohorts and little is known about variation across the world. By combining 22 newly sequenced faecal metagenomes of individuals from four countries with previously published data sets, here we identify three robust clusters (referred to as enterotypes hereafter) that are not nation or continent specific. We also confirmed the enterotypes in two published, larger cohorts, indicating that intestinal microbiota variation is generally stratified, not continuous. This indicates further the existence of a limited number of well-balanced host-microbial symbiotic states that might respond differently to diet and drug intake. The enterotypes are mostly driven by species composition, but abundant molecular functions are not necessarily provided by abundant species, highlighting the importance of a functional analysis to understand microbial communities. Although individual host properties such as body mass index, age, or gender cannot explain the observed enterotypes, data-driven marker genes or functional modules can be identified for each of these host properties. For example, twelve genes significantly correlate with age and three functional modules with the body mass index, hinting at a diagnostic potential of microbial markers.
我们对人类肠道微生物组的物种和功能组成的了解正在迅速增加，但这仍然基于非常少的队列，对全球范围内的变化知之甚少。通过将来自四个国家的 22 个新测序的粪便宏基因组与以前发表的数据集中的数据结合起来，我们确定了三个稳健的聚类（以下简称肠型），它们不是特定于国家或大陆的。我们还在两个已发表的更大队列中确认了肠型，这表明肠道微生物群的变化通常是分层的，而不是连续的。这进一步表明存在有限数量的、平衡良好的宿主-微生物共生状态，这些状态可能对饮食和药物摄入有不同的反应。肠型主要由物种组成驱动，但丰富的分子功能不一定由丰富的物种提供，这突出了功能分析对于理解微生物群落的重要性。尽管个体宿主特性，如体重指数、年龄或性别，不能解释所观察到的肠型，但可以为每个宿主特性确定数据驱动的标记基因或功能模块。例如，有 12 个基因与年龄显著相关，有 3 个功能模块与体重指数相关，这暗示了微生物标记物的诊断潜力。
