A unified initiative to harness Earth's microbiomes

Journal Article · Fri Oct 30 00:00:00 EDT 2015 · Science

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aac8480· OSTI ID:1474885

Alivisatos, A. P.; Blaser, M. J.; Brodie, E. L.; Chun, M.; Dangl, J. L.; Donohue, T. J.; Dorrestein, P. C.; Gilbert, J. A.; Green, J. L.; Jansson, J. K.; Knight, R.; Maxon, M. E.; McFall-Ngai, M. J.; Miller, J. F.; Pollard, K. S.; Ruby, E. G.; Taha, S. A.

Despite their centrality to life on Earth, we know little about how microbes interact with each other, their hosts, or their environment. Although DNA sequencing technologies have enabled a new view of the ubiquity and diversity of microorganisms, this has mainly yielded snapshots that shed limited light on microbial functions or community dynamics. Given that nearly every habitat and organism hosts a diverse constellation of microorganisms—its “microbiome”—such knowledge could transform our understanding of the world and launch innovations in agriculture, energy, health, the environment, and more (see the photo). Here, we propose an interdisciplinary Unified Microbiome Initiative (UMI) to discover and advance tools to understand and harness the capabilities of Earth's microbial ecosystems. The impacts of oceans and soil microbes on atmospheric CO₂ are critical for understanding climate change. By manipulating interactions at the root-soil-microbe interface, we may reduce agricultural pesticide, fertilizer, and water use enrich marginal land and rehabilitate degraded soils. Microbes can degrade plant cell walls (for biofuels), and synthesize myriad small molecules for new bioproducts, including antibiotics. Restoring normal human microbial ecosystems can save lives [e.g., fecal microbiome transplantation for Clostridium difficile infections]. Rational management of microbial communities in and around us has implications for asthma, diabetes, obesity, infectious diseases, psychiatric illnesses, and other afflictions. The human microbiome is a target and a source for new drugs and an essential tool for precision medicine. The National Science Foundation's Microbial Observatories, the U.S. Department of Energy's Genomic Sciences program, the National Institutes of Health's Human Microbiome Project, and other efforts in the United States and abroad have served as critical first steps in revealing the diversity of microbes and their communities. However, we lack many tools required to advance beyond descriptive approaches to studies that enable a mechanistic, predictive, and actionable understanding of global microbiome processes. Developing these tools requires new collaborations between physical, life, and biomedical sciences; engineering; and other disciplines.

• Research Organization: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (SC)
• Contributing Organization: Unified Microbiome Initiative Consortium
• Grant/Contract Number: AC02-05CH11231; AC05-76RL01830
• OSTI ID: 1474885
• Journal Information: Science, Vol. 350, Issue 6260; ISSN 0036-8075
• Publisher: AAAS
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

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