STRUCTURAL BASIS FOR HOST/COMMENSAL-MICROBE INTERACTIONS IN THE HUMAN DISTAL GUT MICROBIOME

摘要

My view of the present state of human microbiome research The continued deluge of sequences from genome sequencing efforts are providing "omics" and related fields with unheralded opportunities to explore the richness and diversity of life forms and the fundamental processes that allow organisms to evolve and function in their own particular niches and environments. Metagenomics has uncovered a vast diversity of microorganisms that colonize the human body, which is estimated to contain over 10 times more microbial cells than human cells. The NIH Human Microbiome Project (HMP) was launched in 2008 with the goal of exploring these microorganisms and to investigate their role in human health and disease [1-3]. However, microbiome projects to date been have dominated by efforts to sequence the bacterial genomes and elucidate the types and composition of the bacteria that inhabit specific environments, such as the human gut. These studies have enabled identification of a large number of novel protein families that are specific to the gut microbial communities. Over the past decade or so, the field of structural genomics (SG) was founded to address questions on a genome scale [4-6]. As such, high-throughput structural biology (HTSB) was pioneered to develop tools and methodologies to tackle biomedical and biological questions on a scale not previously contemplated but critical if the fruits of the genomes efforts were to be realized at the protein structure and function level. These HTSB approaches have indeed enabled broader explorations into the rapidly expanding protein universe, as well as structural coverage of entire organelles, organisms, and collections that inhabit specific niches, such as the human microbiome.