The microbiome represents a diverse and complex microbial community that contributes to many aspects of human, animal, and environmental health. Understanding what comprises this diverse population can lead to understandings that help us fight disease, grow sustainable crops, and protect the environment.
But unraveling the millions of genomes represented in a single sample of any microbiome can be a daunting task. How do you separate individual genomes? How do you analyze the abundance of taxa? What is each individual microbe doing in this particular environment? And it gets more complex from there.
Many microbes, including viruses, are not able to be cultured and have not been researched and characterized,1 making studying these organisms even more challenging.
1. Wade W. Unculturable bacteria--the uncharacterized organisms that cause oral infections. J R Soc Med. 2002;95(2):81-3.
