The microbiome is the community of microorganisms that live together in a particular habitat. And it is that, without bacteria we probably would not exist. Humans, animals, and plants have their own unique microbiomes, but so do soils, oceans, and even buildings.
The human body is home to around 100 trillion microbes. They outnumber human cells in the body by a ratio of 10 to 1.
Thanks to recent scientific advances in genetics, we now know much more about the microbes in our body. Many countries have invested large sums in investigating the interactions within the ecosystem of the human body and their relevance to health and disease.
Two terms microbiota and microbiome are often used to refer to the same thing and are used interchangeably. We differentiate them.
What is the human microbiome?
The intestinal microbiota is part of humans from birth and affects the functioning of the entire organism. It consists of a wide variety of bacteria, viruses, fungi, and other single-celled animals that live in the body.
The microbiome is the name given to all the genes within these microbial cells.
All human beings harbor between 10 trillion and 100 trillion microbial cells in a symbiotic relationship . This benefits both the microbes and their hosts, as long as the body is in a healthy state. Estimates vary, but there could be more than 1,000 different species of microorganisms making up the human microbiota.
There are many studies that attempt to decipher the human genome by sequencing all human genes. Similarly, the microbiome has undergone intense efforts to unravel all of its genetic information.
The human ecosystem
The 40 trillion microbes in the body are so small that they represent about 2 to 3% of the total weight of the human body, despite being more numerous than cells.
A 2012 study published in the journal Nature by the Human Microbiome Project Consortium found that samples from oral and fecal microbial communities are particularly diverse. In contrast, vaginal site samples show particularly simple microbial communities.
The study demonstrated the great diversity of the human microbiome in a large group of healthy Western people, but it raises questions for future research. How do microbial populations within each of us vary over a lifetime, and are the colonization patterns of beneficial microbes the same as those exhibited by disease-causing microbes?
New findings on the microbiome
There are many studies underway that are investigating the impact of the gut microbiota on overall health.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) launched the Human Microbiome Project in 2007 , a research project that aims to define the microbial species that affect humans and their relationships to health by producing large sets of available data. to the public from genetic studies.
Most of the microorganisms that live in humans are found in the gastrointestinal system , and this is also where most of the discoveries are made.
Recent research has also been done on how potential pathogens from outside the body try to invade it and how they relate to the gut microbiota. This will help identify ways to limit the invasion of potentially harmful microbes and their disease-causing effects.
