Targeted metagenomic (16S amplicons) of the fecal microbial communities from young healthy lean students from Munich Germany

The study of microbial communities through 16SrRNA amplicon profiles is offering a powerful and inexpensive way to elucidate the role of microbes in multiple conditions of the human body and suggest interventions for prevention or cure. Especially the gut microbiome has been and will continue to be the target of choice of multiple studies as the prominent site of host microbe interactions with systemic implications. The accumulated knowledge has shown that gut microbial profiles show high interindividual variability of the abundances of different microbial taxa leading to the requirement of large numbers of samples to extract safe results. In addition, even in the presence of thousands of gut microbiome studies there are no reference studies that can be used for comparisons and contextualization of individual studies. Here we present the Munich Students Cohort fecal microbiome dataset, a 16S amplicon based microbial profiling of more than two hundred young (avg 23 years), healthy (no chronic disease), lean (<30 BMI), undisturbed (no antibiotics or medication) students. This curated dataset could be utilized as a reference in other studies, offering a common point in assessing the observed profiles of samples from various conditions.

通过16S rRNA 扩增子谱（16S rRNA amplicon profiles）开展微生物群落研究，是一种高效且经济的研究途径，可用于阐明微生物在人体多种状态下的作用，并为疾病的预防与治疗提出干预策略。
其中，肠道微生物组（gut microbiome）作为宿主与微生物互作的核心场所并具有全身系统性影响，长期以来且未来仍将是众多研究的首选目标。
现有研究积累的成果表明，肠道微生物谱中不同微生物类群（microbial taxa）的丰度存在显著的个体间差异，因此需要纳入大量样本才能获得可靠的研究结论。
此外，尽管目前已有数千项肠道微生物组相关研究，但仍缺乏可用于对照分析及为单项研究提供背景阐释的参照研究。
本研究介绍慕尼黑学生队列（Munich Students Cohort）粪便微生物组数据集：该数据集基于16S扩增子的微生物谱分析，涵盖200余名年轻受试者（平均年龄23岁），均为无慢性疾病的健康人群、体瘦状态（身体质量指数BMI<30，Body Mass Index），且未受抗生素或其他药物干扰的学生。
该经精心整理的数据集可作为其他研究的参照标准，为不同生理或病理状态下样本的微生物谱分析提供统一的对照基准。