Cited by 1,591Genomics and Phylogenetic StudiesGut microbiota and healthMicrobial Community Ecology and Physiology

Extensive Unexplored Human Microbiome Diversity Revealed by Over 150,000 Genomes from Metagenomes Spanning Age, Geography, and Lifestyle

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Pasolli, Edoardo, Asnicar, Francesco, Manara, Serena, Zolfo, Moreno, Karcher, Nicolai, Armanini, Federica, Beghini, Francesco, Manghi, Paolo +10 more·2019·Cell

Abstract

The body-wide human microbiome plays a role in health, but its full diversity remains uncharacterized, particularly outside of the gut and in international populations. We leveraged 9,428 metagenomes to reconstruct 154,723 microbial genomes (45% of high quality) spanning body sites, ages, countries, and lifestyles. We recapitulated 4,930 species-level genome bins (SGBs), 77% without genomes in public repositories (unknown SGBs [uSGBs]). uSGBs are prevalent (in 93% of well-assembled samples), expand underrepresented phyla, and are enriched in non-Westernized populations (40% of the total SGBs). We annotated 2.85 M genes in SGBs, many associated with conditions including infant development (94,000) or Westernization (106,000). SGBs and uSGBs permit deeper microbiome analyses and increase the average mappability of metagenomic reads from 67.76% to 87.51% in the gut (median 94.26%) and 65.14% to 82.34% in the mouth. We thus identify thousands of microbial genomes from yet-to-be-named species, expand the pangenomes of human-associated microbes, and allow better exploitation of metagenomic technologies.

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  • A large fraction of the gut microbiome's individual uniqueness is encoded at the level of single strains.

    “and a large fraction of this uniqueness is encoded at the level of single strains36–38.”

    From Cross-cohort gut microbiome associations with immune checkpoint inhibitor response in advanced melanoma (2022) · cites this paper as [37]

    The Results section on sample-specific strain recovery reports substantial diversity among gut microbial strains, including previously unsampled diversity within Bacteroides species. It does not establish that a large fraction of the gut microbiome’s uniqueness between individuals is attributable to single strains; no page number is available in our copy. (LLM, conf=0.82)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
  • While the inherited genome is essentially stable for the lifetime of the host, the microbiome is immensely diverse, dynamic, and responsive to external input, enhancing its potential as a target for therapeutic intervention.

    “While our inherited genome is essentially stable for the lifetime of the host, the microbiome is immensely diverse (Mosca et al., 2016;Pasolli et al., 2019), dynamic (Lloyd-Price et al., 2017), and responsive to external input, enhancing its potential as a target for therapeutic intervention”

    From The Microbiota-Gut-Brain Axis (2019) · cites this paper as Pasolli et al., 2019

  • Large-scale cultivation projects and massive metagenomic assembly efforts are quickly expanding and completing reference databases needed for taxonomic profiling tools.

    “However, particularly for the gut microbiome, largescale cultivation projects 134 and massive metagenomic assembly efforts 135 are quickly expanding and completing reference databases needed for taxonomic profiling tools. 136”
  • With the vast majority of the microbiome remaining uncultured, phenotypes cannot be tested in a straightforward manner.

    “With the vast majority of the microbiome remaining so far uncultured, 135 phenotypes cannot be tested in a straightforward manner.”
  • Complete characterization of stool composition is so far impossible to achieve, even with the most recent multiomic approaches.

    “However, the complete characterization of stool composition is so far impossible to achieve, even with the most recent multiomic approaches.”

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Authors
Pasolli, E., Asnicar, F., Manara, S., Zolfo, M., Karcher, N., Armanini, F., Beghini, F., Manghi, P., Tett, A., Ghensi, P., Collado, M. C., Rice, B. L., DuLong, C., Morgan, X. C., Golden, C. D., Quince, C., Huttenhower, C., & Segata, N.
Affiliations
  • University of Trento (IT)
  • Harvard University (US)
  • University of Otago (NZ)
  • University of Warwick (GB)
  • Broad Institute (US)
Corresponding author
Segata, Nicola
Venue
Cell
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2019-01
Volume
176
Issue
3
Pages
649-662.e20
ISSN
0092-8674 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W2910615673
Cited by
1,591
References
82
Citations by year
2026: 131 · 2025: 195 · 2024: 211 · 2023: 206 · 2022: 248 · 2021: 276 · 2020: 203 · 2019: 116 · 2018: 1 · 2012: 1
FWCI
71.67
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Cell (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • DIGITAL.CSIC (Spanish National Research Council (CSIC)) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • Institutional Research Information System (Università degli Studi di Trento) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • UEA Digital Repository (University of East Anglia) (submittedVersion)
  • Warwick Research Archive Portal (University of Warwick) (submittedVersion)
Funders
  • EU-H2020 (DiMeTrack-707345)
  • NIH NHGRI (R01HG005220)
  • NIDDK (R24DK110499, U54DE023798)
  • CMIT (6935956)
  • ERC (MetaPG-716575)
  • MIUR (RBFR13EWWI)
  • EU-FP7 (PCIG13-GA-2013-618833)
  • CARITRO (2013.0239)
  • LEO Pharma Foundation
  • Rockefeller Foundation
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Genomics and Phylogenetic Studies
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Gut microbiota and health
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Ecology › Microbial Community Ecology and Physiology
Keywords
human microbiome, metagenome-assembled genomes, microbial diversity, body site, lifestyle, Westernization, infant development, pan-genome, oral microbiota, gut microbiota, genome annotation
MeSH terms
Big Data, Geography, Humans, Life Style, Phylogeny, Genetic Variation, Sequence Analysis, DNA, Metagenome, Metagenomics, Microbiota

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