Integration of culture-dependent and independent methods provides a more comprehensive picture of the human gut microbiome than either method alone

This study showed that a combination of culturomics and sequencing approaches can more effectively characterise the gut microbiota than either method alone. Culture restored some low-abundance bacterial species in the gut; the CEMP approach provides a basis for the design of culture media to produce new microorganisms, and for the targeted screening of bacterial strains. CEMP will also allow for functional characterisation of bacterial populations, which will contribute to elucidation of their biological activity during host_bacteria and bacterial interactions in of the context of healthy and diseased states, and facilitate faecal transplantation. We also found that ECP missed most of the bacterial species present in culture media, therefore, the number of colonies collected during ECP should be expanded in future studies.