title: The human microbiota: the rise of an "empire".
abstract: The human body hosts rich and diverse microbial communities. Our microbiota affects the normal human physiology, and compositional changes might alter host homeostasis and, therefore, disease risk. The microbial community structure may sometimes occupy discrete configurations and under certain circumstances vary continuously. The ability to characterize accurately the ecology of human-associated microbial communities became possible by advances in deep sequencing and bioinformatics analyses.
authors.affiliation: Department of Internal Medicine B, Rambam Health Care Campus, Haifa, Israel;
authors.forename: Gidon
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Berger
authors.affiliation: Department of Internal Medicine B, Rambam Health Care Campus, Haifa, Israel;
authors.forename: Roni
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Bitterman
authors.affiliation: Department of Internal Medicine B, Rambam Health Care Campus, Haifa, Israel; ; Ruth & Bruce Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel.
authors.forename: Zaher S
authors.initials: ZS
authors.lastname: Azzam
keywords: 16S ribosomal RNA; human microbiota; next-generation sequencing