Department of Anthropology, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, NV, USA.
Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research, Klosterneuburg, Austria.
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2020 Nov 23;375(1812):20190577. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2019.0577. Epub 2020 Oct 5.
In this study, I use microbiome datasets from global soil samples and diverse hosts to learn whether soil microbial taxa are found in host microbiomes, and whether these observations fit the narrative that environmental interaction influences human microbiomes. A major motivation for conducting host-associated microbiome research is to contribute towards understanding how the environment may influence host physiology. The microbial molecular network is considered a key vector by which environmental traits may be transmitted to the host. Research on human evolution seeks evidence that can inform about the living experiences of human ancestors. This objective is substantially enhanced by recent work on ancient biomolecules from preserved microbial tissues, such as dental calculus, faecal sediments and whole coprolites. A challenge yet is to distinguish authentic biomolecules from environmental contaminants deposited contemporaneously, primarily from soil. However, we do not have sound expectations about the soil microbial elements arriving to host-associated microbiomes in a modern context. One assumption in human microbiome research is that proximity to the natural environment should affect biodiversity or impart genetic elements. I present evidence supporting the assumption that environmental soil taxa are found among host-associated gut taxa, which can recapitulate the surrounding host habitat ecotype. Soil taxa found in gut microbiomes relate to a set of universal 'core' taxa for all soil ecotypes, demonstrating that widespread host organisms may experience a consistent pattern of external environmental cues, perhaps critical for development. Observed differentiation of soil feature diversity, abundance and composition among human communities, great apes and invertebrate hosts also indicates that lifestyle patterns are inferable from an environmental signal that is retrievable from gut microbiome amplicon data. This article is part of the theme issue 'Insights into health and disease from ancient biomolecules'.
在本研究中，我使用来自全球土壤样本和多种宿主的微生物组数据集，以了解土壤微生物类群是否存在于宿主微生物组中，以及这些观察结果是否符合环境相互作用影响人类微生物组的说法。进行宿主相关微生物组研究的一个主要动机是为了帮助理解环境如何影响宿主生理学。微生物分子网络被认为是环境特征可能传递给宿主的关键载体。人类进化研究旨在寻找可以为人类祖先的生活经历提供信息的证据。最近，从保存的微生物组织（如牙垢、粪便沉积物和完整的粪便）中提取古代生物分子的研究，极大地增强了这一目标。然而，挑战在于要将与环境同时沉积的真实生物分子与环境污染物区分开来，主要是从土壤中区分。然而，我们对现代环境中到达宿主相关微生物组的土壤微生物元素并没有很好的预期。人类微生物组研究的一个假设是，接近自然环境应该会影响生物多样性或赋予遗传元素。我提出的证据支持这样一种假设，即环境土壤分类群存在于宿主相关的肠道分类群中，可以再现周围宿主栖息地生态型。在肠道微生物组中发现的土壤分类群与所有土壤生态型的一组通用“核心”分类群有关，这表明广泛的宿主生物可能会经历一致的外部环境线索模式，这对其发育也许至关重要。人类社区、大型类人猿和无脊椎动物宿主之间土壤特征多样性、丰度和组成的分化也表明，生活方式模式可以从从肠道微生物组扩增子数据中可获取的环境信号中推断出来。本文是主题为“从古代生物分子中洞察健康与疾病”的特刊的一部分。
