Saraswati Awasthi RS-Lab

Every year, 27th June is observed as World Microbiome Day1 founded by APC Microbiome Ireland in 2018 with the aim to create awareness about the importance of the microbes in shaping the health of humans, animals, plants, ocean and the whole planet.

It is important to realise that we live in a microbial world and the impact these microscopic organisms have on our lives is not only restricted to making curd and bread and causing diseases, but it is much more than you could have ever imagined.

Some of the most intriguing facts include that the human body itself has more number of microbial cells in and on it than its own body cells which together function as a whole ecological unit2,3.

We are always surrounded by a sea of microbes and their presence is inevitable, so the mindset that the microbes are just pathogens or germs and their avoidance leads to wellness has to be changed.

The word microbiome refers to the collective genomes of all microorganisms present in a particular environment, on the other hand microbiota refers to the microbial species belonging to bacteria, fungi, viruses and other single celled eukaryotes present in that habitat.

In the recent years, with the advancement in the genome sequencing and high throughput technology various research groups across the globe have not only characterised the microbial diversity of different environments viz human body, oceans, soil, glaciers, built-environments etc. but have also catalogued the functional profiles of these microbial communities.

The goal of every microbiome study is to target three basic questions; to know what exists? how it is existing and why does it exist? Answer to the first question gives the type of the microbial diversity in a particular environment, second question gives the functional role of the microbial community and third one explains the way the microbes interact with each other and with the surrounding environment. Metagenomics or the microbiome analyses of these varying habitats would help us gain insights uncovering the power of the functional role these microbes are playing in their respective environments. Scientists have correlated the roles of microbial communities in the gut with diseases like Colon cancer, Crohn’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, allergies, depression and anxiety, obesity, Diabetes and others4,5,6. Microbiomes belonging to different environments collectively maintain the normal state of functioning of that specific habitat like biogeochemical cycling in oceans, soil and in extreme habitats such as hot springs, geothermal vents, glaciers etc. which also play a critical role in alleviating climate change7-10.

In summary, the study of all these microbial communities and their functionality could help us in solving greatest challenges impacting human health and saving of the planet earth.

References :

1 https://worldmicrobiomeday.com/about

2. Alam, R., Abdolmaleky, H.M. and Zhou, J.R., 2017. Microbiome, inflammation, epigenetic alterations, and mental diseases. American Journal of Medical Genetics Part B: Neuropsychiatric Genetics, 174(6), pp.651-660.

3. Bordenstein, S.R. and Theis, K.R., 2015. Host biology in light of the microbiome: ten principles of holobionts and hologenomes. PLoS biology, 13(8), p.e1002226.

4. Sender, R., Fuchs, S. and Milo, R., 2016. Revised estimates for the number of human and bacteria cells in the body. PLoS biology, 14(8), p.e1002533.1.

5. Cornejo-Pareja, I., Munoz-Garach, A., Clemente-Postigo, M. and Tinahones, F.J., 2019. Importance of gut microbiota in obesity. European journal of clinical nutrition, 72(Suppl 1), pp.26-37.

6. Zaky, A., Glastras, S.J., Wong, M.Y., Pollock, C.A. and Saad, S., 2021. The role of the gut microbiome in diabetes and obesity-related kidney disease. International journal of molecular sciences, 22(17), p.9641.

7. Louca, S., Parfrey, L.W. and Doebeli, M., 2016. Decoupling function and taxonomy in the global ocean microbiome. Science, 353(6305), pp.1272-1277.

8. Jansson, J.K. and Hofmockel, K.S., 2020. Soil microbiomes and climate change. Nature Reviews Microbiology, 18(1), pp.35-46.

9. Sokol, N.W., Slessarev, E., Marschmann, G.L., Nicolas, A., Blazewicz, S.J., Brodie, E.L., Firestone, M.K., Foley, M.M., Hestrin, R., Hungate, B.A. and Koch, B.J., 2022. Life and death in the soil microbiome: how ecological processes influence biogeochemistry. Nature Reviews Microbiology, 20(7), pp.415-430.

10. Hutchins, D.A., Jansson, J.K., Remais, J.V., Rich, V.I., Singh, B.K. and Trivedi, P., 2019. Climate change microbiology—problems and perspectives. Nature Reviews Microbiology, 17(6), pp.391-396.

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