BIO-ML: A Comprehensive Catalogue of ~8000 Human Gut Bacteria

Through Openbiome, researchers from MIT and the Broad Institute were able to gain access to fecal samples from about 90 people over an extended period, up to two years. This provided a valuable opportunity to analyse how microbial populations changed over time within single hosts and to put together The Broad Institute-Openbiome Microbiome Library (BIO-ML).

BIO-ML is a open-access multi-omic database containing 7,758 bacterial isolates that dominate the human GI tract, with 3,632 paired genome sequences and additional longitudinal 16S, metagenomic and metabolomic data that can be useful for research purposes.

Comprehensive and high-resolution collections of bacterial isolates open the possibility to mechanistically investigate how our lifestyle shapes our gut microbiome, metabolism, and inflammation. We aim to provide such a resource to the research community worldwide, including to lower-income research institutions

Mathieu Groussin, Research associate. Source: http://news.mit.edu/2019/catalogue-human-digestive-gut-bacteria-0902

The researchers have also begun a larger-scale project to collect microbiome samples from a greater diversity of populations around the world, especially from underrepresented populations who live in nonindustrialized societies, as their diet and microbiomes are expected to be very different from those of people living in industrialized societies.