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Graphic depicting the human skin microbiota, with relative prevalences of various classes of bacteria. The human microbiome is the aggregate of all microbiota that reside on or within human tissues and biofluids along with the corresponding anatomical sites in which they reside, [1] [2] including the gastrointestinal tract, skin, mammary glands, seminal fluid, uterus, ovarian follicles, lung ...
The microbiome and host emerged during evolution as a synergistic unit from epigenetics and genetic characteristics, sometimes collectively referred to as a holobiont. [7] [8] The presence of microbiota in human and other metazoan guts has been critical for understanding the co-evolution between metazoans and bacteria.
The framework of the hologenome theory of evolution is as follows (condensed from Rosenberg et al., 2007): [28] "All animals and plants establish symbiotic relationships with microorganisms." "Different host species contain different symbiont populations and individuals of the same species can also contain different symbiont populations."
In the context of genomics, the term human microbiome is sometimes used to refer to the collective genomes of resident microorganisms; [118] the term human metagenome has the same meaning. [117] Humans are colonised by many microorganisms, with approximately the same order of magnitude of non-human cells as human cells. [119]
A holobiont is a collection of closely associated species that have complex interactions, such as a plant species and the members of its microbiome. [2] [9] Each species present in a holobiont is a biont, and the genomes of all bionts taken together are the hologenome, or the "comprehensive gene system" of the holobiont. [10]
In humans, gut microecology is the study of the microbial ecology of the human gut which includes gut microbiota composition, its metabolic activity, and the interactions between the microbiota, the host, and the environment. [3] Research in human gut microecology is important because the microbiome can have profound effects on human health.
Some scientists have suggested that individual human beings can be thought of as "superorganisms"; [10] as a typical human digestive system contains 10 13 to 10 14 microorganisms whose collective genome, the microbiome studied by the Human Microbiome Project, contains at least 100 times as many genes as the human genome itself.
The oral microbiota consists of all the microorganisms that exist in the mouth. It is the second largest of the human body and made of various bacteria, viruses, fungi and protozoa. [ 14 ] These organisms play an important role in oral and overall health.