The human microbiome (the genetic material of all the micro-organisms that colonize the human body) is consists of millions of genes (about 200 times the number of our own genes).¹ These amazing communities of microbes are essential for our development, help digest our food, regulate our immune system, protect us against pathogens, and provide novel biomarkers for disease. Dysfunction of the microbiome is associated with obesity, diabetes, autoimmune disease and other several other conditions.

Reproducible, strain-level characterization of all the members of the human microbiome (including the unculturable ones) is essential for linking microbial community structure, gene function and metabolic products to health outcomes. Our ProxiMeta^TM Metagenome Deconvolution Platform offers a new standard in human microbiome research by enabling high-quality, scalable, culture-free, de novo deconvolution of the human microbiota without any reliance on a priori information, such as reference genomes or binning. In addition, accurate assignment of plasmids and other mobile genetic elements to specific members of the community, allows many biologically and medically relevant questions to be answered for the first time.

Find out how the ProxiMeta Platform was used to:

• deconvolve the human gut microbiome far more efficiently than traditional shotgun metagenomic methods relying on binning analysis.
• profile the human gut microbiome of a healthy human fecal microbiome transplant donor