Theriot Casey M
Department of Population Health and Pathobiology, College of Veterinary Medicine, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina, USA.
mSystems. 2018 Mar 6;3(2). doi: 10.1128/mSystems.00173-17. eCollection 2018 Mar-Apr.
Over the past 10 years, microbiome research has focused on defining the structures associated with different disease states in multiple systems, but has fallen short on showing causation. Prior omic studies have generated many new hypotheses, but moving forward we need to start dissecting the function of each bacterium alone and in concert with complex bacterial communities in well-characterized systems. Over the next 5 years, we need a merging of new omic technologies for exploratory studies with classical bacterial genetics, bacterial physiology, protein engineering, and biochemistry to further define the biochemical mechanisms of the gut microbiota. The future of the systems microbiology field will focus on targeted engineering and editing of the microbiome to alter function, which will be leveraged to prevent and/or treat human diseases. This perspective will focus on my contribution to the microbiome field, both past and present, and where I think research in the field is headed in the near future.
在过去十年中，微生物组研究主要集中在确定多个系统中与不同疾病状态相关的结构，但在证明因果关系方面有所欠缺。先前的组学研究提出了许多新的假设，但展望未来，我们需要开始剖析每种细菌单独以及与特征明确的系统中的复杂细菌群落协同发挥的功能。在接下来的五年里，我们需要将用于探索性研究的新组学技术与经典细菌遗传学、细菌生理学、蛋白质工程和生物化学相结合，以进一步明确肠道微生物群的生化机制。系统微生物学领域的未来将聚焦于对微生物组进行靶向工程改造和编辑以改变其功能，这将被用于预防和/或治疗人类疾病。这篇观点文章将聚焦于我过去和现在对微生物组领域的贡献，以及我认为该领域在不久的将来的研究方向。
