Rethinking "enterotypes"

Dan Knights; Tonya L Ward; Christopher E McKinlay; Hannah Miller; Antonio Gonzalez; Daniel McDonald; Rob Knight

doi:10.1016/j.chom.2014.09.013

Rethinking "enterotypes"

Cell Host Microbe. 2014 Oct 8;16(4):433-7. doi: 10.1016/j.chom.2014.09.013.

Authors

Dan Knights¹, Tonya L Ward², Christopher E McKinlay¹, Hannah Miller³, Antonio Gonzalez⁴, Daniel McDonald⁴, Rob Knight⁵

Affiliations

¹ Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN 55108, USA; BioTechnology Institute, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN 55108, USA.
² BioTechnology Institute, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN 55108, USA.
³ Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN 55108, USA.
⁴ Biofrontiers Institute, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, CO 80309, USA.
⁵ Biofrontiers Institute, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, CO 80309, USA; Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, CO 80309, USA; Department of Computer Science, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, CO 80309, USA; Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Boulder, CO 80309, USA. Electronic address: rob.knight@colorado.edu.

Abstract

Classification of the human gut microbiome into distinct types, or "enterotypes," provides an attractive framework for understanding microbial variation in health and disease. However, as discussed here, several different methods of collapsing enterotype variation into a few discrete clusters suggest that enterotype distribution is continuous and can vary widely within an individual.

MeSH terms

Bacteria / classification*
Bacteria / genetics*
Biota*
Cluster Analysis
Gastrointestinal Tract / microbiology*
Genetic Variation
Genotype
Humans
Metagenome*

Grants and funding

UL1 TR000114/TR/NCATS NIH HHS/United States