Methods

            To understand this project it is of some importance to understand the methods and certain terms, so I’ll briefly go over this. Firstly HMP had to define what a healthy individual was. In this project a healthy individual was free from disease and furthermore had to refrain from the use of antibiotics or medicines that would interfere with their normal flora (The Human Microbiome Project Consortium, 2012). In all there was 242 participants from the western population, 129 males and 113 females. Males had specimens collected from 15 body sites, which included nasal, oral, skin, and lower intestine. Females had specimens collected from the same 15 sites as the males with the addition of 3 specimens collected from 3 areas within the vagina. Participants had specimens collected several times over a period of time to insure that the microbial data on each participant was an accurate representation of their healthy and normal microbiome. In all there was 4,788 specimens collected and analyzed (NIH, 2012). Now to the real scientific stuff; how did they identify the different microbial species within the specimens?? Some microorganisms can be grown by means of cultures and various testing performed to identify them, but it was realized very early on in the history of microbiology that MANY microorganisms just don’t culture. The conditions needed for most microorganisms to grow are just too specific to be replicated in a lab environment (Case, Funke, Tortora, 2013). So the project utilized computer technology that was able to sort through the samples using DNA sequencing. This allowed scientist to separate the human DNA from microbial, due to the differences in ribosomes between microorganisms and humans. It was 16s rRNA that was used to identify the different species of bacteria in the samples. From here this DNA was studied to reveal the metabolic capabilities of the microbial communities within different body sites (NIH, 2012).

Image source: http://genome.cshlp.org 

 This diagram shows the process used in the project to identify the microorganisms in the samples, metagenomics refers to the genetic material that was within the samples.