Assessing the Microbial Diversity of the Healthy Human Gut Microbiome in a Western Population

Assessing the Microbial Diversity of the Healthy Human Gut Microbiome in a Western PopulationThe human genome is a blueprint that modulates metabolism, drug interaction, disease states, immunity, overall health, and general fitness. Since 2008, or the launch of the Human Microbiome Project (HMP), the metagenome has shown to have a parallel influence on human health. The source of high microbial diversity serves as a second genome that has become a major target for medical research. The characterization of the microbiome has been a challenging but progressive process and it has catalyzed the understanding in certain roles of these microbial communities. The gut metagenome in general is highly versatile and although there is much to be elucidated, the correlation between changes in microbial communities and disease states in humans has been confirmed through various studies. Here we present a reanalysis of the human gut microbiome from phase 1 of the HMP, utilizing a novel pipeline to determine the diversity of gut organisms in a healthy human population. This data is also be used to construct the foundation for a knowledgebase on the healthy human gut microbiome composition. The metagenomes are analyzed using a successive and iterative process with CensuScope and Hexagon bioinformatics tools from the HIVE (High-performance Integrated Virtual Environment) platform. The results are tabulated to display species level composition of the samples.

Author

• Desai, Hiral

Language

• en

Date created

• 2017

Type of Work

• Master's Thesis

License

• All rights reserved

Rights statement

• In Copyright

GW Unit

• Molecular Biochemistry & Bioinformatics

Degree

• M.S.

Advisor

• Mazumder, Raja

Committee Member(s)

• Mazumder, Raja
• Morizono, Hiroki

Persistent URL

•  https://scholarspace.library.gwu.edu/etd/qb98mf59x