Transmission of the human microbiome and its impact on health

ongoing

The human microbiome is a key component of our own biology and has important biomedical applications, but while its composition has been studied in depth and linked with several lifestyle and disease factors, it is still highly unknown how its members are acquired, spread, and transmitted across hosts. Our preliminary results suggest that person-to-person microbiome transmission (MT) is extensive and shapes the microbiome according to host interaction networks, leading to the hypothesis that microbiome-linked diseases that are considered non-communicable are instead partially communicable. microTOUCH will (i) develop the methods needed to model MT in human populations from metagenomic sequencing, (ii) unravel the features of microbial transmissibility, and (iii) detail the contribution of MT to host conditions that are currently considered non-communicable. We will first empower metagenomics with the ability to track and model the transmission of known and unknown members of the microbiome, and will then apply these methods to specific case studies of MT in humans (children and adults) and non-human primates across diverse family, social, and interaction networks. Meta-analysis of MT integrating publicly available datasets will unravel the factors impacting MT the most and the degree of transmissibility of each microbiome member. Exploiting the large and deeply phenotyped metagenomic datasets available to the PI, microTOUCH will characterize the role of MT in shaping the connections between the gut/oral microbiome and (i) nutrition and cardiometabolic health, (ii) oral diseases, (iii) cancer and cancer immunotherapy, (iv) autism, and (v) the Westernization process. microTOUCH will advance our understanding of the epidemiological forces shaping the human microbiome and will link MT with host conditions and risk factors, thus enabling the development of biomedical strategies promoting or limiting the transmission of specific disease-associated microbiome components.