メタゲノムで面白そうな論文：ヒト大腸フローラは３種類ある？

Nature(2011)

Received 12 March 2010
Accepted 18 December 2010
Published online 20 April 2011

Enterotypes of the human gut microbiome

Manimozhiyan Arumugam, Jeroen Raes, Eric Pelletier, Denis Le Paslier, Takuji Yamada, Daniel R. Mende, Gabriel R. Fernandes, Julien Tap, Thomas Bruls, Jean-Michel Batto, Marcelo Bertalan, Natalia Borruel, Francesc Casellas, Leyden Fernandez, Laurent Gautier, Torben Hansen, Masahira Hattori, Tetsuya Hayashi, Michiel Kleerebezem, Ken Kurokawa, Marion Leclerc, Florence Levenez, Chaysavanh Manichanh, H. Bjørn Nielsen, Trine Nielsen, Nicolas Pons, Julie Poulain, Junjie Qin, Thomas Sicheritz-Ponten, Sebastian Tims, David Torrents, Edgardo Ugarte, Erwin G. Zoetendal, Jun Wang, Francisco Guarner, Oluf Pedersen, Willem M. de Vos, Søren Brunak, Joel Doré, MetaHIT Consortium, Jean Weissenbach, S. Dusko Ehrlich, Peer Bork,MetaHIT Consortium

林 哲也さんは宮崎大学で腸管細菌ゲノムを長年研究されているようだ。黒川 顕さんは「2007年のあの論文」が有名である。この世界では最初のまとまった仕事だからメタゲノムの世界では必ず引用される。あと服部 正平さんも日本のメタゲノムの第一人者。日本語の総説をよく拝見する。Weissenbachは最近メタゲノムをやっているのですね。昔は筋ジスでありヨーロッパのゲノムの大御所であったヒトだ。面白い方向性だ。フランス・ヨーロッパがメタゲノムでは頑張っているのだね。

Comparative Metagenomics Revealed Commonly Enriched Gene Sets in Human Gut Microbiomes
DNA Res (2007) 14 (4): 169-181.

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.

詳しく読んでいないが、ずいぶんおもしろい。予想もしない報告だから。