Human microbiome analysis is the study of microbial communities found in and on the human body. The goal of human microbiome studies is to understand the role of microbes in health and disease.
Traditionally, studying samples from human skin, stool, or blood relied on time- and labor-intensive microbiology techniques of growing and isolating individual organisms followed by phenotypic or genotypic analysis. Microbial community profiling within a single sample was not possible with these methods.
Now, high-quality metatranscriptomics data enables researchers to quantify gene expression changes, predict resistance or susceptibility to specific treatments, understand host-pathogen immune interactions, and track disease progression.
