Next-generation sequencing approaches in microbiome research have allowed surveys of
microbial communities, their genomes, and their functions with higher sensitivity than ever …

Research on the human microbiome has yielded numerous insights into health and disease,
but also has resulted in a wealth of experimental artifacts. Here, we present suggestions for …

Thousands of pathogens are known to infect humans, but only a fraction are readily
identifiable using current diagnostic methods. Microbial cell-free DNA sequencing offers the …

The advent of next generation sequencing (NGS) has enabled investigations of the gut
microbiome with unprecedented resolution and throughput. This has stimulated the …

Background Recent studies have suggested that bacteria associated with the placenta—a
“placental microbiome”—may be important in reproductive health and disease. However, a …

Microbial ecology as a scientific field is fundamentally driven by technological advance. The
past decade's revolution in DNA sequencing cost and throughput has made it possible for …

Background The human placenta has been traditionally viewed as sterile, and microbial
invasion of this organ has been associated with adverse pregnancy outcomes. Yet, recent …

Animals are distinguished by having guts—organs that must extract nutrients from food yet
also bar invasion by pathogens. Most guts are colonized by nonpathogenic microorganisms …

Contamination is a ubiquitous problem in microbiome research and can skew results,
especially when small amounts of target DNA are available. Nevertheless, no clear solution …

Shotgun metagenomics and computational analysis are used to compare the taxonomic and
functional profiles of microbial communities. Leveraging this approach to understand roles of …