title: Context and the human microbiome.
abstract: Human microbiome reference datasets provide epidemiological context for researchers, enabling them to uncover new insights into their own data through meta-analyses. In addition, large and comprehensive reference sets offer a means to develop or test hypotheses and can pave the way for addressing practical study design considerations such as sample size decisions. We discuss the importance of reference sets in human microbiome research, limitations of existing resources, technical challenges to employing reference sets, examples of their usage, and contributions of the American Gut Project to the development of a comprehensive reference set. Through engaging the general public, the American Gut Project aims to address many of the issues present in existing reference resources, characterizing health and disease, lifestyle, and dietary choices of the participants while extending its efforts globally through international collaborations.
authors.affiliation: Department of Computer Science, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, CO, 80304, USA. mcdonadt@colorado.edu.|BioFrontiers Institute, University of Colorado, 3415 Colorado Avenue, Boulder, CO, 80304, USA. mcdonadt@colorado.edu.
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: McDonald
authors.affiliation: Center for Computational Biology & Bioinformatics, Department of Medicine, University of California San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA, 92093, USA. abirmingham@ucsd.edu.
authors.forename: Amanda
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Birmingham
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, University of California San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA, 92093, USA. robknight@ucsd.edu.|Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of California San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA, 92093, USA. robknight@ucsd.edu.
authors.forename: Rob
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Knight
mesh_terms: D016208:Databases, Factual; D000069196:Gastrointestinal Microbiome; D006801:Humans; D064307:Microbiota; D012106:Research