Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

MICROBIOTA

The influence of ethnicity and geography on human gut microbiome composition

Nature Medicine volume 24, pages 1495–1496 (2018)Cite this article

Subjects

The taxonomic composition of the gut microbiome associates with patient ethnicity and geographic location. This association impacts the development of microbiome-based applications for personalized medicine.

Clinical studies demonstrate that the composition of the gut microbiome often links to patient health1. This observation has helped fuel the idea that the microbiome can be used as a noninvasive diagnostic indicator of health. However, recent large-scale studies have revealed extensive personalization of the taxonomic composition of the gut microbiome, even among seemingly healthy patients2,3,4,5. In some cases, such as obesity, this interindividual variation even appears to obscure the microbiome’s association with patient health6. Such variation is concerning because it remains poorly understood and impacts the accuracy of microbiome-based diagnostics of disease. If the underlying factors that drive this variation can be resolved, it may be possible to develop improved diagnostics that consider the context of these factors in a patient (Fig. 1). In this issue of Nature Medicine, two recent large-scale clinical microbiome studies offer transformative insight into at least two of these factors: ethnicity7 and geography8.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Relevant articles

Open Access articles citing this article.

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Fig. 1: The influence of individual geography and ethnicity on the gut microbiome.

References

  1. Duvallet, C., Gibbons, S. M., Gurry, T., Irizarry, R. A. & Alm, E. J. Nat. Commun. 8, 1784 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Arumugam, M. et al. Nature 473, 174–180 (2011).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Human Microbiome Project Consortium. Nature 486, 207–214 (2012).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Falony, G. et al. Science 29, 560–564 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Zhang, J. et al. ISME J. 9, 1979–1990 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Sze, M. A. & Schloss, P. D. mBio 7, e01018–16 (2016).

  7. Deschasaux, M. et al. Nat. Med. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-018-0160-1 (2018).

  8. He, Y. et al. Nat. Med. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-018-0164-x (2018).

  9. Yatsunenko, T. et al. Nature 486, 222–227 (2012).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  10. Schnorr, S. L. et al. Nat. Commun. 15, 3654 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Martínez, I. et al. Cell Reports 11, 527–538 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Gupta, V. K., Paul, S. & Dutta, C. Front. Microbiol. 8, 1162 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Microbiology, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, USA

    Christopher A. Gaulke & Thomas J. Sharpton

  2. Department of Statistics, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, USA

    Thomas J. Sharpton

Authors
  1. Christopher A. Gaulke
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Thomas J. Sharpton
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Thomas J. Sharpton.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Gaulke, C.A., Sharpton, T.J. The influence of ethnicity and geography on human gut microbiome composition. Nat Med 24, 1495–1496 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-018-0210-8

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-018-0210-8

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing