The human microbiome: at the interface of health and disease

Abstract

A growing understanding of the relationship between the microbiome and human health is made possible by advances in sequencing technologies and computational tools. These studies highlight how the composition and function of the microbiome varies across individuals and anatomical sites, over time, and also in disease. Interest in the role of the microbiome in human health has burgeoned over the past decade with the advent of new technologies for interrogating complex microbial communities. The large-scale dynamics of the microbiome can be described by many of the tools and observations used in the study of population ecology. Deciphering the metagenome and its aggregate genetic information can also be used to understand the functional properties of the microbial community. Both the microbiome and metagenome probably have important functions in health and disease; their exploration is a frontier in human genetics.