The number of genes in bacteria that live in and on people could top 1 billion trillion -- and at least half appear to be unique to their host, a new study reveals.
and gut. Those findings were published Aug. 14 in the journal"Ours is a gateway study, the first step on what will likely be a long journey toward understanding how differences in gene content drive microbial behavior and modify disease risk," said study first author Braden Tierney, a graduate student at Harvard Medical School.
The diversity of genes is far greater than researchers expected. They said the functions of microbial genes unique to each person are different from those of shared genes. The team analyzed more than 2,100 bacteria samples from people's guts and more than 1,400 from their mouths. The samples contained nearly 46 million bacterial genes -- about 24 million from theMore than half of the bacterial genes occurred only once, meaning they were unique to the individual. Of those unique genes, 11.8 million came from the mouth and 12.6 million from the gut.
The human microbiome contains trillions of bacteria. Most are harmless, many beneficial, but some cause disease. There is growing evidence that these microbes play an important role in health. Changes in levels and types of bacteria in and on your body have been linked to development of conditions ranging from
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