PRJNA264400
Sewage influent Targeted Locus (Loci)
We used oligotyping to demonstrate that the distribution of bacteria in sewage samples closely resembles what would be expected in a population-level sample of human fecal microbial communities. Sewage sampling therefore presents the opportunity to ask questions about the distribution of gut microorganisms among human populations that individual-based sampling approaches cannot provide. A comparison of 71 US cities revealed US populations universally share a small set of bacteria, whose members likely represent various core community states within US adults. Cities were generally differentiated by family-specific oligotype enrichment, and these patterns were a good predictor of a city’s estimated obesity level. Our approach demonstrates the potential to ask questions about the human fecal microbiome at large scales.