Host and microbiome multi-omics integration: applications and methodologies

Abstract

The study of the microbial community—the microbiome—associated with a human host is a maturing research field. It is increasingly clear that the composition of the human’s microbiome is associated with various diseases such as gastrointestinal diseases, liver diseases and metabolic diseases. Using high-throughput technologies such as next-generation sequencing and mass spectrometry–based metabolomics, we are able to comprehensively sequence the microbiome—the metagenome—and associate these data with the genomic, epigenomics, transcriptomic and metabolic profile of the host. Our review summarises the application of integrating host omics with microbiome as well as the analytical methods and related tools applied in these studies. In addition, potential future directions are discussed.