Interplay between the human gut microbiome and host metabolism

The human gut is inhabited by a complex and metabolically active microbial ecosystem. While many studies focused on the effect of individual microbial taxa on human health, their overall metabolic potential has been under-explored. Using whole-metagenome shotgun sequencing data in 1,004 twins, we first observed that unrelated subjects share, on average, almost double the number of metabolic pathways (82%) than species (43%). Then, using 673 blood and 713 faecal metabolites, we found metabolic pathways to be associated with 34% of blood and 95% of faecal metabolites, with over 18,000 significant associations, while species showed less than 3,000 associations. Finally, we estimated that the microbiome was…

• WT
  Wellcome Trust
• JP
  Joint Programming Initiative A healthy diet for a healthy life
• NI
  National Institute for Health and Care Research
• KC
  King's College London
• EC
  European Commission
• MR
  Medical Research Council

  Awards: MR/N030125/1, MR/N030125/1, MR/N01183X/1