Human microbiome research excludes developing world, study finds

Date:
February 15, 2022
Source:
PLOS
Summary:
New studies emerge daily on the effect of the human microbiome on
human health: colon cancer, ulcers, and cognitive conditions such
as Alzheimer's disease have been associated with the communities
of microbes that live in our bodies. However, global research
into the human microbiome is heavily biased in favor of wealthy
countries such as the United States and United Kingdom, according
to a new study.



FULL STORY ==========================================================================
New studies emerge daily on the effect of the human microbiome on human
health: colon cancer, ulcers, and cognitive conditions such as Alzheimer's disease have been associated with the communities of microbes that live
in our bodies.

However, global research into the human microbiome is heavily biased in
favor of wealthy countries such as the United States and United Kingdom, according to a study publishing February 15th in the open-access journal
PLOS Biology by Richard Abdill, Elizabeth Adamowicz and Ran Blekhman at
the University of Minnesota.


==========================================================================
The authors evaluated global repositories of DNA sequencing data used to measure microbiome content and found that almost half of all publicly
available samples come from subjects in the U.S., even though that
country represents only 4.3 percent of the global population. These
findings raise questions about whether advances in the field will be
applicable to countries that have fewer resources and populations that
don't receive as much attention in the literature.

The "human microbiome" refers to the communities of microorganisms living
on and in the human body -- estimates suggest a person's human cells
are greatly outnumbered by the trillions of bacteria making up their microbiome, living everywhere from the small intestine to the surface
of the eyeball.

Research shows that these microbes have extensive interactions with
their human hosts and have wide-ranging effects, both positive and
negative. Some gut microbes, for example, help break down food into
nutrients that humans cannot naturally access, while others have been
linked to conditions such as inflammatory bowel disease, stomach cancer,
and diabetes. Accordingly, billions of dollars have been invested in researching these relationships since the early 2000s. To understand where
this funding was being used, the Minnesota researchers inventoried more
than 440,000 samples of human microbiome data shared in international repositories maintained by organizations such as the National Institutes
of Health in the United States and Japan's National Institute of Genetics.

"Interest in the human microbiome has been growing worldwide," said
Richard Abdill, the study's lead author. "When we look at how the field
is developing, who is being included, and where resources have been
allocated, it is clear that our understanding of the 'human' microbiome
does not include most humans.

Our study is a step towards quantifying this disparity." There are many reasons for these disparities, such as economic and political factors that impact scientific research, and logistical difficulties with performing research in countries with less infrastructure. However, the microbiome
is in turn influenced by factors such as genetics, geography, diet,
and lifestyle, making it important to study many populations to find
links to human health. Because of this, the authors maintain that the
exclusion of the developing world from microbiome research threatens to
create a situation in which future microbiome-based medical treatments
may only be effective for people in some countries or populations.

Of the samples for which a country of origin could be determined,
the researchers found more than 71 percent came from Europe and North
America, almost five times as many as would be expected given their
population. Central and Southern Asia was the most underrepresented
region: Though more than 2 billion people live in countries such as India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, only 13,620 microbiome samples were available
from that region, or 1.5 percent of samples from almost 26 percent of
the world's population. No samples at all were found from countries such
as Algeria, Yemen, Afghanistan, and Kazakhstan.

Blekhman adds, "Interest in the human microbiome has been growing
quickly, but there are conspicuous gaps in where that interest
is being directed. Our study investigated all publicly available
human microbiome samples -- almost half a million samples -- to
quantify these gaps. We found that our understanding of the 'human'
microbiome leaves out a lot of the humans." special promotion
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for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Richard J. Abdill, Elizabeth M. Adamowicz, Ran Blekhman. Public
human
microbiome data are dominated by highly developed countries. PLOS
Biology, 2022; 20 (2): e3001536 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3001536 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/02/220215140752.htm

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