The effect of industrialization on the multi-domain gut microbiome across time and geography

 The human microbiota is a rich ecological system that consists of a diverse assembly of bacteria, archaea, eukaryotes and viruses particular to each niche of the human body. The most biodiverse and heavily populated microbial ecosystem in the human body is the gut. This project sets the grounds of a bigger initiative to stablish a longterm observatory: The Microbial Observatory of Industrialization (MOI), aiming to characterize the dynamics of the human microbiota adaptation of populations in fast transition towards a more industrialized lifestyle. Progressive changes in the microbial profile, including extinctions, blooming of low frequency microbes or new colonizers of the gut microbiota, will be analyzed in the context of objective indicators of industrial transition, including health and lifestyle indicators, at the individual and community level, to better understand the ecological evolution of the gut micro ecology. We will work with a population undergoing rapid transition towards industrialization, the Matsés from the deep Amazonian region. We will implement the Microbiota Research and Discovery Pipeline (MRDP), to taxonomically and functionally characterize the gut microbiota at a level of resolution unprecedented in the field. The MRDP is a concept that integrates -omics sciences with in vitro and in vivo models, thus facilitating a more complete understanding of the gut microbiota at both, the individual taxa and the gut micro ecology as a whole.