Researchers theorize that the dominant diet of each city has a role in the formation of the composition of the microbiome of its inhabitants
Intestinal bacteria can reveal more about us than our own accent. A new study was able to predict the location of people with 94% precision through the microbiome.
The saying “we are the one we eat” has just gained a new force. In a recent published in Frontiers in Microbiologythe investigators got Settlement of participants through microbioma analysis.
The study conducted by BGI Genomicsa Chinese company centered on precision medicine, concluded that our intestinal bacteria are specific to the region where we live.
“The study challenges the longtime belief that differences in intestinal microbiota are important only in the scale of continents or regions. We find that even people living in neighboring cities have distinct microbial patterns,” the study author told the study author, Li Taofrom the Institute of Intelligent Medical Research (IIMR) of BGI Genomics.
The researchers analyzed the feces of 381 Chinese adults Han healthy from two cities in Hubei Province: Wuhan, located in the China Center-East, and Shiyan, located in the Northwest. The cities are about 500 km between each other.
Participants had no serious illnesses and had not taken antibiotics in the previous three months.
649 bacterial species and 515 metabolic pathways were identified, which were compared between individuals. It was found that the people of Wuhan and Shiyan had statistically significant differences in both microbial diversity as in the composition of species.
Researchers developed an automatic learning model that integrated 16 bacterial species and 12 specific metabolic pathways in each city.
The model reached a high level of accuracy – 94% – Significantly surpassing the models that used only species or just roads.
This suggests that Even very close populationscomo Wuhan e Shiany, and my father “distinct fingerprints of the microbiome.
Researchers theorize that the dominant diet of Each city has a role in the formation of the composition of the microbiome of its inhabitants.
These findings may indicate a person’s regional origin can easily be identified through feces, even within the same province, which may be useful for forensic investigations or missing persons.
In addition, automatic learning combined with microbiome characterization can help predict disease risk or monitor the health of the population in specific geographical regions.
