Human microbiome characterization through massive shotgun sequencing of circulating cell-free DNA.

Sequence data from cell free DNA found in 1351 blood samples collected from 188 patient was analyzed and assembled. 3761 of the 7190 larger contiguous regions generated were novel, with little or no homology to existing sequencing data. Presence of coding sequences in the contigs was confirmed in independent experiments and by direct PCR. The organisms identified represent entirely novel taxa, showing a substantially broader diversity in the human microbiome than previously appreciated.

对188名患者采集的1351份血液样本中提取的游离DNA（cell free DNA）序列数据进行了分析与组装。生成的7190个较大连续区域中，有3761个为新序列，与现有测序数据几乎无同源性或完全不具有同源性。重叠群（contigs）中编码序列的存在性已通过独立实验及直接PCR技术得到验证。鉴定出的生物体代表了全新的分类群，揭示人类微生物组的多样性显著高于此前的认知水平。