title: Identifying strains that contribute to complex diseases through the study of microbial inheritance.
abstract: It has been 35 y since Carl Woese reported in PNAS how sequencing ribosomal RNA genes could be used to distinguish the three domains of life on Earth. During the past decade, 16S rDNA sequencing has enabled the now frequent enumeration of bacterial communities that populate the bodies of humans representing different ages, cultural traditions, and health states. A challenge going forward is to quantify the contributions of community members to wellness, disease risk, and disease pathogenesis. Here, we explore a theoretical framework for studies of the inheritance of bacterial strains and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of various study designs for assessing the contribution of strains to complex diseases.
authors.affiliation: Immunology Institute and Institute for Genomics and Multiscale Biology and jeremiah.faith@mssm.edu jean-frederic.colombel@mssm.edu jgordon@wustl.edu.
authors.forename: Jeremiah J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Faith
authors.affiliation: Henry D. Janowitz Division of Gastroenterology, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY 10029; and jeremiah.faith@mssm.edu jean-frederic.colombel@mssm.edu jgordon@wustl.edu.
authors.forename: Jean-Frédéric
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: Colombel
authors.affiliation: Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63108 jeremiah.faith@mssm.edu jean-frederic.colombel@mssm.edu jgordon@wustl.edu.
authors.forename: Jeffrey I
authors.initials: JI
authors.lastname: Gordon
mesh_terms: D004275:DNA, Ribosomal / Q000235:genetics; D006801:Humans; D064307:Microbiota / Q000235:genetics; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D012336:RNA, Ribosomal, 16S / Q000235:genetics
chemical_list: D004275:DNA, Ribosomal; D012336:RNA, Ribosomal, 16S
keywords: disease; effector strains; health; microbial inheritance; strain-resolution human microbial ecology analyses