Cited by 4,699Gut microbiota and healthGenomics and Phylogenetic StudiesMicrobial Community Ecology and Physiology

Metagenomic Analysis of the Human Distal Gut Microbiome

Open access
Gill, Steven R., Pop, Mihai, DeBoy, Robert T., Eckburg, Paul B., Turnbaugh, Peter J., Samuel, Buck S., Gordon, Jeffrey I., Relman, David A. +2 more·2006·Science

Abstract

The human intestinal microbiota is composed of 10(13) to 10(14) microorganisms whose collective genome ("microbiome") contains at least 100 times as many genes as our own genome. We analyzed approximately 78 million base pairs of unique DNA sequence and 2062 polymerase chain reaction-amplified 16S ribosomal DNA sequences obtained from the fecal DNAs of two healthy adults. Using metabolic function analyses of identified genes, we compared our human genome with the average content of previously sequenced microbial genomes. Our microbiome has significantly enriched metabolism of glycans, amino acids, and xenobiotics; methanogenesis; and 2-methyl-d-erythritol 4-phosphate pathway-mediated biosynthesis of vitamins and isoprenoids. Thus, humans are superorganisms whose metabolism represents an amalgamation of microbial and human attributes.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1126/science.1124234

Cites

2 of 2 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Many aspects of intercellular and inter-species signaling, short- and long-term evolution, and regulatory programs are exercised by microbes in their natural settings and are extremely difficult to recapitulate in a controlled setting.

    “Since early studies of environmental and host-associated microbial communities (Gill et al., 2006; Tyson et al., 2004; Venter et al., 2004), it has been clear that many aspects of intercellular and inter-species signaling, short- and long-term evolution, and regulatory programs are exercised by microbes in their natural settings and extremely difficult to recapitulate in a controlled setting.”

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Research works printed but not linked: 10

  1. [2]Eckburg PB, et al. Science. 2005;308:1635. [Google Scholar]
  2. [3]Ley RE, et al. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 2005;102:11070. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0504978102. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar] · DOI · Paper page
  3. [4]Mazmanian SK, Liu CH, Tzianabos AO, Kasper DL. Cell. 2005;122:107. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2005.05.007. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar] · DOI · Paper page
  4. [5]Rakoff-Nahoum S, Paglino J, Eslami-Varzaneh F, Edberg S, Medzhitov R. Cell. 2004;118:229. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2004.07.002. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar] · DOI · Paper page
  5. [6]Backhed F, et al. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 2004;101:15718. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0407076101. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar] · DOI · Paper page
  6. [7]Nicholson JK, Holmes E, Wilson ID. Nat. Rev. Microbiol. 2005;3:431. doi: 10.1038/nrmicro1152. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar] · DOI · Paper page
  7. [8]Rondon MR, et al. Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 2000;66:2541. doi: 10.1128/aem.66.6.2541-2547.2000. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar] · DOI
  8. [9]Venter JC, et al. Science. 2004;304:66. doi: 10.1126/science.1093857. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar] · DOI · Paper page
  9. [10]Tyson GW, et al. Nature. 2004;428:25. [Google Scholar]
  10. [12]Schell MA, et al. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 2002;99:14422. doi: 10.1073/pnas.212527599. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar] · DOI

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Gill, S. R., Pop, M., DeBoy, R. T., Eckburg, P. B., Turnbaugh, P. J., Samuel, B. S., Gordon, J. I., Relman, D. A., Fraser-Liggett, C. M., & Nelson, K. E.
Affiliations
  • Washington University in St. Louis (US)
  • The Institute for Genomic Research, 9712 Medical Center Drive, Rockville, MD 20850, USA.
Corresponding author
  • Gill, Steven R.
  • Pop, Mihai
Venue
Science
Published
2006-06-02
Volume
312
Issue
5778
Pages
1355-1359
ISSN
  • 0036-8075 (ISSN-L)
  • 1095-9203
OpenAlex
W2145336165
Cited by
4,699
References
2
Citations by year
2026: 64 · 2025: 183 · 2024: 212 · 2023: 255 · 2022: 330 · 2021: 303 · 2020: 353 · 2019: 285 · 2018: 250 · 2017: 259 · 2016: 245 · 2015: 256 · 2014: 249 · 2013: 254 · 2012: 247
FWCI
68.03
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Science (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
Funders
  • National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (AI51259, R01AI051259)
  • National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (DK 70977, R01DK070977)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Gut microbiota and health
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Genomics and Phylogenetic Studies
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Ecology › Microbial Community Ecology and Physiology
Keywords
human gut microbiome, metagenomics, 16S rRNA gene sequencing, fecal DNA, microbial gene content, glycogen metabolism, amino acid metabolism, xenobiotic metabolism, methanogenesis, methylerythritol phosphate pathway, vitamin biosynthesis, isoprenoid biosynthesis
MeSH terms
Adult, Bacteria, Bifidobacterium, Dietary Carbohydrates, Dietary Fiber, DNA, Ribosomal, Feces, Female, Fermentation, Humans, Intestinal Mucosa, Intestines, Male, Molecular Sequence Data, Phylogeny, RNA, Ribosomal, 16S, Genetic Variation, Xenobiotics, Open Reading Frames, Genome, Bacterial, Genomics

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review